Two new preliminary studies by the American Heart Association show that adults who use vaping products and other forms of e-cigarettes regularly have shown poor blood vessel and heart functions and perform poorly on stress testing exercises when compared to those who don’t use vaping products or e-cigarettes. the researchers who conducted these two studies found that vaping or using e-cigarettes regularly by young adults for four years on average produce the same cardiovascular changes as those observed in individuals who have smoked tobacco for 20 years.
The first of the two studies was carried out from march 2019 to march 2022 by researchers from the University of Wisconsin. The goal of the study was to find out the short time impacts of e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes on regular users when compared to those who don’t use those products. Of all the participants in study 164 had an average of 27.4 years and had used e-cigarettes exclusively for an average of 4.1 years.
According to Mathew C. Tattersall, the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health’s associate professor of medicine and Madison’s UW Health associate director of preventive cardiology, who was the lead author of this study, the participants in the study showed dangerous heart rate, blood vessel tone and blood pressure immediately after smoking or using an e-cigarette product of their preference. These findings show that people who regularly use e-cigarettes or smoke have worse risk factors for developing cardiovascular diseases after smoking or vaping. The researcher believes smoking or using vaping products activated the sympathetic nervous system and this is responsible for risk factors recorded immediately after vaping or smocking and 90 minutes later when the test exercises were conducted.
The second study compared the tests for participants who either smoked or vaped to those who did not vape or smoke. The goal of this study was to assess how each group of participants performed stress testing exercises designed to predict the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases. The study used treadmill stress testing exercises that were performed 90 minutes after the individual participant had either smoked or vaped for the group of those who confessed to being regular smokers or vapers. For those who neither smoked nor vaped the same exercises were done 90 minutes after the individual participants had rested.
According to Christina M. Hughey, the lead author of the study and UW health’s fellow in cardiovascular medicine, the individuals who regularly vaped or smoked performed poorly on all four parameters when compared to those who did not use nicotine products even when age, sex and race had been factored in. In addition, the performance between those who vaped and those who smoked was not different in any significant way. This is even though those who vaped were much younger and had reported having vaped regularly for fewer years on average than those who reported smoking.
The two preliminary studies were presented at the 2022 Scientific Sessions for American Heart Association Held in early November 2022. They are expected to form the basis of further studies on the impact of vaping and smoking on risk factors associated with cardiovascular diseases.
