A study conducted by researchers at The Ohio State University College of Medicine tested the impacts of vaping on teenage mice.
The study titled “e-Cigarette Aerosol Reduces Left Ventricular Function in Adolescent Mice,” exposed mice to an e-cigarette mixture that includes nicotine in a lab setting. Professor of medicine and nursing at The Ohio State University College of Nursing, Loren Wold, PhD, said that significant cardiovascular effects were observed were observed in adolescent male mice.
“When we exposed adolescent males, we had significant cardiovascular effects,” explained Professor Wold. With regards to the female mice, the heart function was not impacted at all, which the research team attribute to possibly higher levels of an enzyme called CYP 2A5. “The theory is that this enzyme being much higher, was able to break the nicotine down much faster,” said Wold.
Switching from smoking to vaping improved heart health
On the other hand, new findings reported in a new study published in Circulation, suggested that smokers who switch exclusively to vaping reduce their risk of heart disease by 34%. Using a longitudinal approach, the research team analysed data from 32,000 adult tobacco users who participated in the nationally representative Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) over a six-year period from 2013 to 2019. The researchers assessed vaping and smoking patterns, and then compared them to incidences of self-reported heart disease, such as stroke, a heart attack and heart failure.
The compiled data indicated that compared to nonsmokers, smokers experienced a risk of heart disease that was 1.8 times higher, while the risk for exclusive vapers was not statistically different. To this effect, the study concluded that there is a significant link between smoking and heart disease, but not between vaping and heart disease.