{"id":2347,"date":"2019-12-09T17:34:09","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T06:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/marijuana-vape-users-are-getting-incurable-cobalt-lung\/"},"modified":"2019-12-09T17:34:09","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T06:34:09","slug":"marijuana-vape-users-are-getting-incurable-cobalt-lung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/marijuana-vape-users-are-getting-incurable-cobalt-lung\/","title":{"rendered":"Marijuana vape users are getting incurable “cobalt lung”"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is just the beginning, pulmonary researchers caution.<\/p>\n

By Alexandra Pattillo<\/a> <\/em> on December 4, 2019<\/a><\/p>\n

After using a marijuana vape pen for just six months, a 49-year-old retired dog trainer went to the doctor coughing and wheezing, reporting shortness of breath upon exertion. The woman had smoked off and on through her teens and twenties, but was healthy \u2014 other than her worrying throat symptoms.<\/p>\n

Her doctors gave her a rare and surprising diagnosis: hard-metal pneumoconiosis \u2014 a lung disease known as \u201ccobalt lung.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until now, this lung condition was most often seen in one particular group of people: metal workers. Typically, people who sharpen tools, polish diamonds, or make dental prosthetics are at risk of developing \u201ccobalt lung,\u201d not dog trainers.<\/p>\n

So what caused the woman\u2019s lung condition? Worryingly, it was probably her marijuana vape pen.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the conclusion of a case study<\/a> on the woman, published this week in the European Respiratory Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Researchers analyzed the vape liquid from her \u201cZenPen,\u201d finding toxic metals in the juice like nickel, aluminum, lead, and, you guessed it, cobalt. They also have a theory for how those metals might make their way from the vape into the woman\u2019s airways in the first place \u2014 it may be to do with the way marijuana vape pens work.<\/p>\n

\u201cExposure to cobalt dust is extremely rare outside of a few specific industries,\u201d Rupal Shah<\/a>, paper co-author and researcher at the University of California, San Francisco said<\/a> in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first known case of a metal-induced toxicity in the lung that has followed from vaping and it has resulted in long-term, probably permanent, scarring of the patient\u2019s lungs.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

What is cobalt lung?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is just the beginning, pulmonary researchers caution. By Alexandra Pattillo  on December 4, 2019 After using a marijuana vape pen for just six months, a 49-year-old retired dog trainer went to the doctor coughing and wheezing, reporting shortness of breath upon exertion. The woman had smoked off and on through her teens and twenties, but was healthy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-isabella-list-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dalgarnoinstitute.org.au\/wp_site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}