Dual e-cig and cigarette use have a worse effect on your heart than using one alone
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Vapers face the same risk of heart disease as cigarette users, according to federally funded research.
In two studies, one in mice and one in humans, e-cigarettes were found to cause similar damage to blood vessels as tobacco smoking.
When blood vessels are damaged or unable to function properly, it becomes more difficult for oxygenated blood to travel to the heart and around the body.
There were also signs that the combination of smoking and vaping could do even more harm – a worrying sign for those who use e-cigarettes to quit.
Traditional tobacco is still considered worse for a person’s health than e-cigarettes because of its links to lung cancer and other respiratory problems.
This study provides more evidence that vapes are not the risk-free alternative that companies are touting them.
The report comes on the heels of new federal data that said: more than 2.55 million middle or high school students had used an e-cigarette device in the past 30 days.
Nearly 10 percent of American adults vape, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Federal regulators have described the situation as a “vaping epidemic.”
Vapers face the same risk of heart disease as cigarette users, according to federally funded research (file image)
Cigarette smoking and e-cigarette vaping are known to impair endothelial function, preventing the large blood vessels from opening enough to supply enough blood to the heart and other tissues (shown in the NIH diagram)
Prolonged use of combustible cigarettes or vaping caused damage to the blood vessels, although each seemed to produce some adverse effects, the others did not.
This suggests that double use of the products exacerbates the damage.
The researchers received government funding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, part of the sprawling National Institutes of Health.
The findings of experts from the University of California, San Francisco have been published in the American Heart Association’s journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology (ATVB).
Cigarette smoking and e-cigarette vaping are known to impair endothelial function.
This can prevent the large blood vessels from opening enough to supply the heart and other tissues with enough blood.
Endothelial cells line blood vessels and maintain blood fluidity, regulate blood flow, and regulate vessel wall permeability by generating nitric oxide.
Damage to these cells can lead to numerous cardiovascular problems such as hypertension and coronary artery disease.
More than 2.5 million American children use e-cigarettes — a half-million increase from last year and a downward trend in recent years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 2.55 million Americans in middle or high school admit to using the device in the past 30 days. It’s a 500,000 or 24 percent jump from 2021. It’s the first increase since the CDC began collecting annual data in 2019.
The risks of smoking flammable cigarettes and vaping are well known. California scientists now say individual ingredients in either aren’t necessarily responsible for blood vessel problems. Inhaling foreign substances is more likely to cause the problems.
The findings mirror two studies, one conducted in mice and the other in humans.
In the mouse study, researchers sought to determine whether there were specific components of tobacco smoke or e-cigarette vapor that were responsible for damage to blood vessels.
They measured arterial flow-mediated dilation (FMD), or the blood vessels’ ability to dilate, pre- and post-exposure to smoking from four types of traditional combustible cigarettes: conventional nicotine, reduced nicotine, conventional nicotine with added menthol, and reduced nicotine with added menthol.
Vascular dilatation was reduced after use of all four types of cigarettes.
They also exposed the rats to two of the key gases found in both smoke and e-cigarette aerosol, as well as clean carbon nanoparticles to evaluate their effects on blood vessel dilation.
Despite the difference in ingredients that make up e-cigarette aerosol and cigarette smoke, the researchers found that damage to blood vessels does not appear to be caused by any specific constituent of cigarette smoke or e-cigarette vapor.
Rather, it appears to be caused by airway irritation that triggers biological signals in the valgus nerve.
It is responsible for the involuntary internal organ functions, which somehow lead to damage to blood vessels.
dr. Matthew L. Springer, professor of medicine in the department of cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco, said: “We were surprised to find that there wasn’t a single part you could remove to reduce the harmful effect of smoke or fumes on blood vessels.” .’
“As long as there is an irritant in the airways, blood vessel function can be affected,” he said.
In the human study, researchers recruited 120 volunteers, including long-term e-cigarette users, long-term cigarette smokers, and non-users.
The scientists collected blood samples from each and exposed those samples to lab-grown blood vessel cells and measured the release of nitric oxide, which indicates whether the endothelial cells are functioning properly.
The blood of e-cigarette users and smokers caused a significantly greater decrease in endothelial cell production of nitric oxide than the blood of non-users.
They also found that blood from e-cigarette users caused more permeability in the blood vessel cells than the blood of both tobacco smokers and non-users.
Too much permeability means leaky blood vessels that can trigger a host of inflammatory responses leading to cell damage and heart disease.
They concluded that the blood of tobacco smokers had higher levels of certain circulating biomarkers of cardiovascular risk, and the blood of e-cigarette users had elevated levels of other circulating biomarkers of cardiovascular risk.
dr. Springer said: ‘These findings suggest that using the two products together, as many people do, could increase their health risks compared to using them separately… We weren’t expecting to see that.’
The team’s results suggest that regulators such as the Food and Drug Administration cannot rely on banning specific ingredients to avoid the adverse health effects.
“Smoking and vaping can have similar harmful cardiovascular effects, but each condition produces some potentially harmful effects that the other does not,” said Dr. jumper.
He added: “These differences indicate that using two products, i.e. smoking combustible cigarettes and using e-cigarette products, may be worse for blood vessel health than smoking or vaping alone.”