Is vaping healthy? E-cigarettes damage the heart and bones

Fashion continues to spread, especially among adolescents and young people. Many end up going to the vaper or vaping because they believe that “it is not bad for your health”, or they want to convince themselves of it.

And while it’s true that studies on the potential health effects of vaping have so far been conflicting, a World Heart Federation (WHF) report, ‘Electronic Cigarettes: A New Threat to Cardiovascular Health’, confirms that the Vaping affects the heart.

The Spanish Heart Foundation has already given the alert: Scientific evidence confirms that electronic cigarettes almost double the risk of myocardial infarction.

Is vaping healthy? This affects the heart

Dr. Regina Dalmau, who is part of the WHF Tobacco Expert Group and is a spokesperson for the FEC, says that liquids and e-cigarette aerosols contain toxic substances and that there is growing evidence that they can cause cardiovascular damage.

So much so that, according to the report presented by the WHF, using electronic cigarettes twice as likely to have a heart attack compared to non-smokers. Additionally, vaping damages the heart in several ways:

Increases heart rate and blood pressure May cause irregular heartbeat Suspected of increasing risk of blood clots.

It can also damage the bones

Just like smoking e-cigarettes weaken bones and therefore increase the risk of osteoporosis (decreased bone density, which makes bones brittle and increases the risk of fracture).

A published study medicalXpress, conducted with data from 5,500 participants, came to the conclusion that vapers suffered more fractures even young adults.

Since e-cigarettes are used primarily by 18- to 25-year-olds, the habit could increase your risk of develop osteoporosis over the years.

What’s in vaper smoke that’s so harmful?

The first thing is to know what a vaper or electronic cigarette is: it is a device that uses a battery and a resistor to heat and vaporize a liquid solution with different ingredients. The smoke, or rather, the vapor, is inhaled by the user, who can circulate it through the lungs (“swallowing it”) or not.

Each of the characteristics must be analyzed to try to determine the effect on health. Let’s start with the liquid solution, which seems the most important. This may or may not contain nicotine.

The one that contains nicotine is used To gradually get rid of tobacco, because you can choose liquids with different degrees of concentration. That is why it is used in therapy to quit tobacco in a similar way to nicotine patches or gum.

It must be remembered that nicotine is a substance stimulant, toxic from certain doses and addictive, but its carcinogenicity is not proven. Tobacco is carcinogenic due to other substances resulting from combustion, not nicotine.

Propylene glycol, glycerin and aromas

Most vaping liquids contain three more ingredients: propylene glycol (around 70%), vegetable glycerin (30%) and aromas.

Propylene glycol is an oily alcohol, Widely used in a variety of products, from paints to medicines. Its vapors can cause irritation to the respiratory tract of some sensitive people and more frequently to the eyes. For this reason it is recommended that it not be used in one of its many applications: the manufacture of fog in discos and theaters.

There are liquid solutions for vaper without propelinglicol that would avoid its potential drawbacks.

The Vegetal glycerin –the same one that is used to make natural soaps– does not seem, in principle, problematic for a healthy person. A couple of cases of lipoid pneumonia have been reported in which doctors attributed it to the glycerin in the vaper, but this etiology has been refuted by other specialists and there is no scientific consensus linking glycerin to the disease.

Finally, the aromas they are generally compounds of synthetic origin (derived from petroleum). These scents are usually Food Additives and some experts warn that there is no certainty about its effect when inhaled.

In addition to the ingredients, it is important to consider the heating. The vaper heats the liquid to produce the vapor up to a maximum temperature of 65 ºC, Therefore, a combustion process comparable to conventional cigarettes does not take place and the associated volatile toxic compounds are not generated.

There may be unknown ingredients

Several scientific studies have found in the vapor traces of carcinogens or neurotoxins such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein and diacetyl, but always in concentrations well below (between 10 and 450 times less) than tobacco cigarettes.

It’s hard to know what’s really in a liquid to vape. There is no regulation and under the heading “aromas” very different compounds can be included.

That is why the study carried out by the professor of environmental chemistry Joan Grimalt at the Institute for Environmental and Water Research, of the Higher Council for Scientific Research, is interesting.

Grimalt tried to determine the organic and inorganic compounds that are actually inhaled by vaping users and passive vapers, and compared them to those found in tobacco smoke.

In the vapor from the vaper he only found significant amounts of propylene glycol, glycerin, nicotine and, in some cases, vanilla. There were other toxic compounds, too, but in proportions similar to those found in city air.

Like a nicotine patch

In contrast, in tobacco smoke it detected more than 1,200 compounds, including various forms of nicotine, and some carcinogens and neurotoxins. For Grimalt, the váper is comparable to chewing gum or patches of nicotine.

To the compounds mentioned up to now we must add the eventual presence in the vapor of metal particlescoming from the resistance.

Chemist Miroslaw Dworniczak believes that users should take this into account and avoid the practice of turning resistors red to clean them, which could alter the behavior of the metal and facilitate the release of particles.

Vaping does not help you quit smoking

On the occasion of the publication of the study by the World Heart Federation, the Spanish Heart Federation has sent a clear message: in view of the fact that the electronic cigarette causes damage to the heart, it should not be promoted as an alternative to tobacco.

According to Dr. Dalmau, several investigations have shown that, In addition to causing cardiovascular damage, vaping is not effective for quitting tobacco because most of the people who use them end up smoking both conventional and electronic cigarettes, which, according to the cardiology specialist, can pose a persistent health risk.

The World Heart Federation (WHF), for its part, has made a request to governments: that strictly regulate the issue of electronic cigarettes and that supervise marketing strategies that advertise e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool.

What to do in view of this?

If you don’t smoke tobacco, it is worth asking yourself if it makes sense to start a habit that represents inhaling a mixture of substances whose composition includes synthetic ingredients and probably some unknown ones, when does not have any health benefits and, in view of new research, it even seriously damages cardiovascular health.

If the pleasure is in the aroma, do we really not have enough and are not safer the myriad of flavors and smells provided by food, spices, medicinal plants, flowers or essential oils?

If what attracts you is the ritual, ask yourself if you are looking to prove that you are not a child, to attract attention, to be part of a group or to calm your anxiety with a substitute for warm emotional food. All of these issues can be addressed without putting your body through unnecessary risk.