Vaping warning after man discovers he has ‘lungs of a 70-year-old’

A man who was left with the lungs of a ’70-year-old’ has urged people to avoid e-cigarettes at all costs, after doctors said his habit triggered the permanent damage. 

Jacob Temple, from Kentucky, first started vaping when he was just 12-years-old, under the impression that it was ‘safer’ than traditional smoking. 

But at just 24-years-old, the painter suffered a near-fatal mini heart attack and medics discovered his addiction had left him with lifelong scarring in his lungs. 

In a TikTok video, now seen almost 4million times, Mr Temple warned that he now  ‘feels like I’m breathing through a straw constantly’ and warned that the habit ‘almost took my life’. 

His case, which will undoubtedly alarm parents, is another example of the youth vaping epidemic, which experts have called ‘disturbing’ and demanded immediate action to stamp out.

Figures show how the proportion of kids using e-cigarettes has exploded amid the decline of traditional smoking, with more than a third of 16 to 18-year-olds in the UK now regularly inhaling them.

‘This is a public service announcement for anyone who is still using those electronic robot d**** to breathe in flavoured air. Stop,’ he said. 

‘I now have the lungs of a 70-year-old man. All the small airway tubes at the bottom of your lungs, those are scarred up, permanently, forever. 

‘I can never inflate or deflate my lungs to one hundred percent, ever again in my life. 

‘It feels like I’m breathing through a straw constantly. Always. Just never getting enough air and there’s nothing that can be done. 

‘The scar tissue is permanent. Please stop.’ 

In a bid to tackle the surge in youth vaping, from June 1, it was made illegal for businesses to sell or supply single-use vapes, such as Elf bars and Lost Mary, in shops and online.

Only devices considered reusable—with a rechargeable battery and replaceable coil—are now allowed.

So popular was the move in Westminster that although the Tories drew up the legislation, Labour took it over and pushed it through after winning last year’s General Election.

Unlike smoking, vaping involves inhaling nicotine in a vapour rather than smoke, supposedly removing the two most harmful elements of smoking, burning tobacco and producing carbon monoxide. 

Because of this, health chiefs, have suggested that vaping is less harmful than smoking. 

However. the long-term effects of e-cigarettes still remain a mystery.

Doctors have expressed fear there could be a wave of lung disease, dental issues and even cancer in the coming decades in people who took up the habit at a young age.

According to the American Lung Association, inflammation from vaping can occur after just a month of vaping, as nanoparticles from the vapour progressively become embedded in lung tissue. 

Dr Ceclie Rose, a US-based lung specialist, said: ‘Chronic vaping of these chemicals could lead to substantial adverse lung health outcomes in the longer term. 

‘We’re very well-conditioned to taking a careful history for those patients who smoke, but we need the same to be true for vaping now too.’ 

Steroids and inhalers can help manage symptoms like shortness of breath, but in most cases, a sufferer’s lungs will never function at full capacity again.  

Other common symptoms include a cough, chest pain, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. 

Mr Temple initially dismissed his persistent cough, but became increasingly worried when he started to experience severe abdominal pain.     

‘I had serious pains where my kidney and liver are. I was really worried that I had something going on with them,’ he told the TikTok video. 

‘I would literally wake up sweating bullets and shivering and the whole side of my bed would be soaked, not to mention that I would wake up being unable to breathe completely,’ he added. 

‘In my sleep, I would cough to the point that my lungs would fill up with air, because I could inhale fully, but not exhale. 

‘So I would breathe in air and not be able to get it all out and that would compound to the point where I had to either use a nebuliser or not be alive in the next five minutes. 

‘My blood oxygen level was at 80 per cent. I had a literal mini heart attack while hooked up to the EKG. I was 24—that should not be happening. 

‘It almost took my life.’

It comes as research earlier this year found the high nicotine content in vapes increases heart rate and blood pressure, as it does in smokers, making blood vessels constrict and damage artery walls.

British scientists discovered both smokers and vapers, who had similar fitness levels, suffered damaged artery walls that can no longer dilate—an almost certain sign of future serious cardiovascular problems.