United States – Who thinks vaping is the golden way of not smoking?
Rethinking Vaping as a Safe Alternative
Think again: A recent study proves that it increases the risk of developing heart failure.
“More and more studies are linking e-cigarettes to harmful effects and finding that it might not be as safe as previously thought,” said study lead author Dr. Yakubu Bene-Alhasan, a resident physician at MedStar Health in Baltimore. “The difference we saw was substantial. It’s worth considering the consequences to your health, especially with regard to heart health.”
Growing Concerns Over Heart Health
As per the background information in a news brief from the American College of Cardiology (ACC), nearly 6 million Americans are currently facing heart failure, a condition in which the heart cannot efficiently pump blood all over the body, as reported by HealthDay.
Such a difficulty can be triggered after a heart attack. Patients suffer from an inability to pump blood out of the heart adequately or a weak heart. Heart failure can actually restrict people from accomplishing their daily tasks and can lead to hospitalization and death.
This new study, to be unveiled during the ACC’s annual meeting next Sunday in Atlanta, underscores the growing body of evidence on health inequalities among our population.
Studies suggest that the proportion of teens and adults currently vaping is between 5-10%, with numbers increasing and many becoming addicted to the nicotine in e-cigarettes.
In the investigation, Bene-Alhasan and his colleagues went through a U.S. national health database and compared the e-cigarette use in over 176,000 adults with any heart failure diagnosis.
The mean age of the people was 52 years, whereas 60.5% were females who only had the risk of developing heart disease, being over 3,240 participants in a follow-up period of just under four years.
The heart failure diagnosis among the vaping group was 19 times that of the group that did not vape, according to the research team in Baltimore. This remained accurate even after they adjusted for other heart disease risk factors, including tobacco and alcohol consumption.
However, it seemed to be the case of one particular heart failure type (HFpEF). In this case, the heart muscle becomes stiff so that the pump does not distend with blood as expected between contractions. The authors, however, point out that rates of HFpEF are on the increase today.
Call for Further Investigation
“I think this research is long overdue, especially considering how much e-cigarettes have gained traction,” Bene-Alhasan said. “We don’t want to wait too long to find out eventually that it might be harmful, and by that time, a lot of harm might have already been done. With more research, we will uncover more about the potential health consequences and improve the information to the public.”
Implications for Public Health
E-cigarettes were found to play very different roles in public health, unlike the American Healthcare Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which does not recommend e-cigarettes for quitting smoking. Thus, the health authority prefers a smart approach that includes quit-smoking counseling and medicines rather than quitting the cold turkey method, as reported by HealthDay.
The provisional nature of these results of a pioneering clinical trial being presented at a medical meeting should be taken into account until they are fully published in a peer-reviewed journal.