Madrid
Updated:06/05/2022 13:53h
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Smoking alternatively traditional and electronic cigarettes does not reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases as some people think. In fact, according to a study published in « Circulation », the risk of these diseases is the same as that of people who exclusively use traditional cigarettes.
Smoking is one of the most important risk factors for diseases such as cancer or cardiovascular diseases. Some studies have proposed the use of e-cigarettes as an alternative to tobacco, but e-cigarettes, which contain many toxic chemicals, are becoming more popular as another way to consume nicotine.
“The fact that dual use – traditional combustible cigarettes and e-cigarettes – has similar cardiovascular disease risk as cigarette smoking is an important finding as many people have turned to e-cigarettes in an attempt to reduce smoking due to who perceive it to be less of a risk,” says Andrew C.
Stokes, lead author of the study and professor at the Boston University School of Public Health (USA). And he warns that it’s common for people to try to change “lTraditional cigarettes for e-cigarettes and get stuck in limbo using both products».
“Many smokers who try to use e-cigarettes to quit actually continue to use both products, becoming dual users, where we haven’t seen a reduction in cardiovascular risk,” Stokes said. We are concerned that any recommendation to use e-cigarettes for smoking cessation could lead to increased dual useas well as e-cigarette initiation among young adults and those who have never smoked cigarettes.”
To examine the relationship between cardiovascular disease, e-cigarette use, and dual use, researchers reviewed data from the Population Assessment Study on Tobacco and Health (PATH), a study conducted in more than 24 000 adults, of which 50% were 35 years old or younger and 51% were women.
Participants were categorized into four groups: no current use of e-cigarettes or tobacco (14,832 people), a group that could include ex-smokers or ex-users of e-cigarettes; exclusive use of electronic cigarettes (822); traditional cigarette consumption (6,515), and dual use of traditional cigarettes and electronic cigarettes (1,858).
Cardiovascular disease was defined as any self-reported diagnosis of heart attack or bypass surgery, heart failure, other heart conditions, or stroke in the previous 12 months.
The review found more than 1,480 cases of any cardiovascular disease and more than 500 cases of heart attack, heart failure or stroke.
The results showed that, compared to people who only smoked traditional cigarettes, those who were dual users had no significant differences in the risk of any cardiovascular disease or heart attackheart failure or cerebrovascular accident.
The researchers did find that, compared to traditional smoking, e-cigarette use alone was associated with 30% to 40% fewer self-reported cardiovascular disease events. However, due to the low number of self-reported outcomes by e-cigarette users, the researchers concluded that more data is needed in this area.
Although the PATH study provides essential information on traditional and e-cigarette use, as well as outcomes such as cardiovascular events, “data is self-reported, study duration is short, and event rate is still lowespecially in younger people,” acknowledges Rose Marie Robertson, co-director of the US Tobacco Regulatory Science Center.
Furthermore, he adds, “because e-cigarette use is still relatively new, there is no long-term evidence to determine the eventual risk of these products over time.” It’s important to remember that even with traditional cigarettes, it took decades of use and vigilance to provide the strength of evidence that we now have to confirm their harm. However, Robertson notes, “People should be aware that e-cigarettes contain addictive nicotine and toxic chemicals that can have adverse effects on your cardiovascular system and overall health.”
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