Young people who use e-cigarettes could be more likely to go on to smoke tobacco, according to a study.
A link was found between the use of the electronic devices by those who have never tried smoking and their first experimentation with cigarettes in the following year.
People in Scotland aged between 11 and 18 were surveyed in February and March 2015, and then again a year later.
The research found 40% of those who tried an e-cigarette in the first survey went on to smoke tobacco.
Dr Catherine Best, research fellow at the University of Stirling, said: "Our findings are broadly similar to those from eight other US studies. However, this is the first study to report from the UK.
"Uniquely, we also found that e-cigarette use had a greater impact on the odds of cigarette experimentation in young 'never smokers' who had a firm intention not to smoke and/or whose friends didn't smoke.
"Traditionally, this is the group of young people least likely to take up smoking."
The initial 2015 survey found that 183 of the 2,125 who had never smoked said they had tried an e-cigarette and 1,942 had not.
Pupils at four Scottish secondary schools took part in the study.
Only 249 (12.8%) of young people who had not tried an e-cigarette went on to try tobacco.
The research was carried out by the DISPLAY Team, a collaboration between the universities of Stirling, St Andrews and Edinburgh as well as ScotCen.
Sally Haw, professor of public and population health, added: "The greater impact of e-cigarette use on young people thought to be at lower risk of starting smoking is of particular concern.
"Further research is required to discover how experimentation with e-cigarettes might influence attitudes to smoking in young people traditionally at lower risk of becoming smokers; and importantly how many of this group who do experiment with cigarettes go on to smoke regularly."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here