Study: Electronic Cigarettes NOT Linked To Heart Damage

According to the latest report from Onassis Cardiac Surgery Centre in Athens, using e cigarettes is NOT linked with any adverse side effects on cardiac function - unlike traditional cigarette smoking.

In fact, the research conducted showed that e cigarettes are considerably less harmful than normal smoking (cigarettes that contain tobacco) and therefore moving from traditional smoking to e cigarette smoking is likely to be a good move in terms of a smoker’s health.

Smoking with traditional cigarettes has many health implications - one major one being heart disease. The World Health Organization (WHO), have commented that smoking will have caused 1 billion deaths by the end of this century.

Manufacturers of e cigarettes have been saying for some time that switching to the e cig is a “healthier alternative” and this research implies that this statement is probably true. Switching to e cigs not only cuts down your tobacco intake (in fact, e cigs contain zero tobacco) but many use the e cigarette as an aide for quitting smoking completely.

What is unique about the e cigarette is that it mimics the sensations of tobacco smoking, but unlike tobacco smoking you do not breathe in smoke. The e liquid inside the e cigarette can be purchased in different flavours, too, giving the e cig user a variety of choices for their e cig.

The study which was based on 42 young volunteers who were daily smokers found that while smokers who used the electronic cigarette got the same experience as smoking a real cigarette, their cravings for tobacco gradually declined without them actually realising it. In addition many of the heart problems that are commonly associated with smoking do not occur with electronic equivalent of real cigarettes.

The cardiac functions of volunteers that smoke one cigarette on a daily basis were then compared to the other set of volunteers using e cigs for a length of 7 minutes over two weeks. The results concluded that the people using the electronic cigarettes was least affected, showing only very slight increase in their blood pressure and heartbeat, and negligible cardiac function disruptions

This is not the only study showing how e cigs are healthier than normal cigarettes. Previous studies have indicated that e cigarettes contain “fewer toxins” than tobacco cigarettes, including nitrosamines which form part of a group of carcinogens in tobacco containing products.

To put things into perspective, in order for a smoker to breathe in the nitrosamines contained in one normal cigarette, you would need to use your e cigarette device every day for 12 months.

Dr Farsalinos, who headed the study, said: “It is too early to say whether the electronic cigarette is a revolution in tobacco harm reduction but the potential is there. It is the only available product that deals with both the chemical (nicotine delivery) and psychological (inhaling and exhaling 'smoke', holding it, etc) addiction to smoking, laboratory analyses indicate that it is significantly less toxic and our study has shown no significant defects in cardiac function after acute use.”