Scientists have known for many years that smoking tobacco products greatly enhances the lung cancer risk and is the number-one cause of this deadly disease But what about vaping and electronic cigarettes? “Vaping is so new, and it takes years and years for lung cancer to develop so we don’t yet know the effects,” said Marisa Bittoni, PhD, MS, BS, an Ohio State scientist whose research focuses on how lifestyle choices such as diet, exercise and smoking/vaping can impact and increase the risk of lung cancer. Bittoni and her colleagues at the James are pioneers in researching the cancer-related effects of e-cigarettes. She led a new study that has shown the combination of smoking and vaping greatly increases the lung cancer risk. The study looked at Ohio State patients already diagnosed with lung cancer and a control group of people who had not been diagnosed with this disease.“Compared to non-smokers, smokers have about a 10 times higher risk of lung cancer,” Bittoni said. “And people who smoke and vape have about a 40 times higher risk than non-smokers.” Bittoni said that further, follow-up research is needed to confirm these initial findings and find out even more. “We’re at the start of a new wave of research [on the effects of vaping],” she said. “The tobacco industry wants to promote vaping as a safer alternative to smoking, but we don’t really know if that’s true yet.” This new research is another step forward for Bittoni. “My whole career has been looking at risk factors and survival,” she said. “By improving your diet and exercising and not smoking you can reduce your cancer risk, and, even after diagnosis and treatment improvements in diet and exercise can help people live longer. There are estimates that 30- to 40percent of all cancers could be avoided by better lifestyle choices.”