E-cigarettes raise risk of heart failure, study finds

Smoke electronic cigarettes increases the risk of heart failure, according to one of the largest studies to date. Although it has not been published, the sample size and large amount of data in the study support this claim and demonstrate that this relationship needs to be studied urgently.

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The results were presented this Tuesday at the Annual Scientific Session of the American College of Cardiology.

Heart failure, which affects more than six million Americans, is a disease in which the heart becomes too stiff or weak to pump blood, often leading to debilitating symptoms and frequent hospitalizations, especially as people age. gets older.

Electronic nicotine products, such as e-cigarettes, vapes or e-pipes, deliver nicotine in aerosol form without combustion and since they became available on the market in the late 2000s, have often been presented as a safer alternative. to tobacco.

But “more and more studies are linking electronic cigarettes with harmful effects and discovering that they may not be as safe as previously thought,” warns Yakubu Bene-Alhasan, from MedStar Health (Baltimore, United States) and lead author of the study.

The research was based on data and electronic health records from All of Us, a large national study led by the National Institutes of Health designed to analyze the relationship between e-cigarettes and new diagnoses of heart failure.

Based on a sample of 175,667 participants (average age of 52 years and 60.5% women), the study found that 3,242 of them developed heart failure in an average follow-up period of 45 months.

The study found that people who had ever used e-cigarettes were 19% more likely to develop heart failure than those who had never used them.

To calculate this proportion, the researchers took into account various demographic and socioeconomic factors, and other risk factors for heart disease and past and current use of other substances, such as alcohol and tobacco.

The results agree with previous studies carried out in animals, which indicated that the consumption of electronic cigarettes can affect the heart in a relevant way.

Other studies in humans have also shown links between e-cigarette consumption and some risk factors associated with heart failure, but none have been conclusive, something that Bene-Alhasan says is due to inherent limitations in the designs of the studies. cross-sectional studies, the smaller sample size and the smaller number of cases of heart failure observed in previous investigations.

For the team, the results of this study support the need for more research into the potential impacts of vaping on heart health, especially given the prevalence of e-cigarette use among younger people, which ranges from 5% to 10%. % of American teenagers and growing.

The study also points out that electronic cigarettes should not be used as a tool to quit smoking, and remembers that the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises combining counseling and medication as the best strategy to quit this habit.

And although the study does not conclusively demonstrate the relationship between e-cigarettes and heart failure, the researchers caution that the study indicates that there is a relationship.

Source: Elcomercio

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