A new study has revealed that vapers are 20 percent more likely to develop heart failure than non-vapers.
There are concerns about the negative health effects of vaping, and the findings suggest that e-cigarettes are not a safer alternative to smoking.
A heart failure condition results in the organ’s incapacity to efficiently circulate blood throughout the body.
The debilitating heart issue affects more than 64 million people, but numbers are on the rise.
E-cigarette users have a 19 percent increased risk of developing the condition, according to researchers from the American College of Cardiology.
Researchers analyzed 175,667 US adults with an average age of 52 for around four years and found that people who used e-cigarettes at any point were 19 percent more likely to develop heart failure than those who had never vaped.
The findings revealed that vapers were statistically more likely to experience preserved ejection fraction heart failure, a condition in which the heart muscle becomes too stiff to function properly.
The rate of preserved ejection fraction has increased over time, resulting in a greater focus on identifying risk factors for this condition.
More and more studies are linking e-cigarettes to harmful health effects and finding that they might not be as safe as previously thought, according to Dr. Yakubu Bene-Alhasan, a physician at MedStar Health in Baltimore, Maryland, and the study’s lead author.
The difference was substantial. Consider the consequences of your health, especially your heart health.
The prevalence of vaping among younger generations makes further investigation necessary.
Around five to ten percent of US teens and just over ten percent of UK teens use vapes, according to surveys.
“I think this research is long overdue, especially considering how much e-cigarettes have gained traction recently,” said Dr. Bene-Alhasan.
We don’t want to wait too long to find out if it’s harmful, and by then, a lot of damage might already be done.
The connection between e-cigarette use and heart failure has been spotted in previous studies, but many have been inconclusive, which Dr. Bene-Alhasan attributes to the limitations in longitudinal research designs and smaller sample sizes.
The study by the American College of Cardiology included a larger number of participants and incorporated a variety of demographic, economic, and lifestyle risk factors, making it one of the most thorough investigations into this topic.
The team can still only infer a causal relationship between vaping and heart failure, according to Dr. Bene-Alhasan.
More research will allow us to uncover more about the potential health consequences and improve the information out to the public.
He encouraged people not to use vaping as a tool to quit smoking, as many people continue to use e-cigarettes long after they have given up tobacco cigarettes.
Counseling and medication are the best strategies for quitting smoking, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.