E-cigarettes can damage health

International Desk: Healthy nonsmokers who used e-cigarettes with nicotine could be inflicting life-long damage on their heart, a study claims.

Unlike cigarettes, e-cigs have no combustion or tobacco. Instead, these electronic, handheld devices deliver nicotine with flavoring and other chemicals in a vapor into the lungs.

Experts studied whether nicotine could have negative effects on the heart and potentially lead to cardiovascular risks.

They found the nicotine in one e-cig increased adrenaline levels in the body for a healthy nonsmoker, which can cause heart attack or sudden death.

It is recommended for nonsmokers to avoid using e-cigs to protect themselves from risks that are similar to those caused by tobacco cigarettes.

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) used a technique called 'heart rate variability' to study how nicotine affects adrenaline rates in the heart.

The researchers previously studied chronic e-cig users and how it impacted their heart compared to those who didn't smoke.

'Chronic e-cig users had abnormal heart rates compared to people who didn't smoke anything,' said Holly R. Middlekauff, senior study author of both studies and professor of medicine (cardiology) and physiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, to Daily Mail Online.

The chronic e-cig users also had higher oxidative stress levels. Both heart rate and a rise in oxidativie stress can increase risk of heart attack. 

This led the researchers to study if nicotine levels were what was impacting the change in heart rate.

'While e-cigarettes typically deliver fewer carcinogens than are found in the tar of tobacco cigarette smoke, they also usually deliver nicotine. Many believe that the tar - not the nicotine - is what leads to increased cancer and heart attack risks,' said Dr. Holly R. Middlekauff.

Middlekauff and her team had nonsmokers who smoked an e-cig with nicotine, without nicotine and one with nothing in it as a control.

This was so they could determine if nicotine increased the adrenaline levels.

Researchers measured cardiac adrenaline activity by assessing heart rate variability and oxidative stress in blood samples both before and after the e-cig was smoked.

They found that oxidative stress levels stayed the same while adrenaline levels increased in those who smoked an e-cig with nicotine.

There was no change to the adrenaline levels in those who smoked e-cigs that didn't have any nicotine.

'While it's reassuring that the non-nicotine components do not have an obvious effect on adrenaline levels to the heart, these findings challenge the concept that inhaled nicotine is benign, or safe,' Middlekauf said.

But she said that e-cigs are a good option for tobacco smokers who are trying to quit. Only for a short period of time, though.

'Our study showed that acute electronic cigarette use with nicotine increases cardiac adrenaline levels,' Middlekauf said.

'I think that just seeing this pattern at all is very concerning and it would hopefully discourage nonsmokers from taking up electronic cigarettes.'

Middlekauf and her team are hoping to use this data and study how heart rate differs for chronic tobacco and e-cig smokers in the future.

Source: Daily Mail Online



risingbd/Sept 21, 2017/Mukul