Vaping Safer Than Smoking? Study Finds It Damaging To Blood Vessels

It is no longer uncommon to hear of people turn to vaping in an attempt to quit smoking. Vaping was introduced to the U.S. market in 2007 by a Chinese pharmacist named Hon Lik whose father died in 2001 of lung cancer.

Hon too was a heavy smoker and became worried about the health effects of cigarettes, only to begin working on a gadget that would serve a nicotine hit to users without the need to smoke cigarettes.

Vaping’s roots can yet be traced back to the 1960’s.

Herbert A. Gilbert, a scrap metal dealer from Beaver Falls, created what he termed the “Smokeless” cigarette in his free time. This device held a liquid heated by battery to generate a vapor to be inhaled by the user. Gilbert prepared several flavors such as mint, rum and cinnamon.

But Gilbert could not find a company that would manufacture his creation and thus, the patent he obtained for it lapsed.

Fast forward to 2019, the effects of smoking e-cigarettes are still not well understood. An investigation into nearly 100 cases of potential vaping-related illnesses resulting in hospitalization was recently launched by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Notable cases include 18-year-old Chance Ammirata, whose lung collapsed, and 26-year-old Dylan Nelson, whose condition was so severe he had to put into a medically induced coma.

Bearing in mind that vaping’s effects could go beyond the lungs to reach blood vessels and blood circulation, researchers recruited 31 healthy non-smoking adults to conduct a study on the effects of e-cigarettes.

In order to measure blood flow, each participant had a cuff tied around their thigh for a couple of minutes to reduce blood flow to the femoral artery and vein. This cuff was then removed, and the blood flow measured with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

It would be typically observed that blood would flow faster once the cuff was removed, hitting a peak velocity before falling to normal levels after roughly a minute -- in order to meet the demand for more blood. This is a response to the body’s tissues being starved of oxygen and nutrients, said senior author Felix Wehrli, a professor of radiologic science and biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

These steps were repeated once more with the only difference being that participants first took 16 puffs on a nicotine-free e-cigarette. This time the widening in participants’ blood vessels to allow blood through was less pronounced. In fact, this widening was 34 percent less than before vaping. In addition, blood acceleration diminished by 25.8 percent, maximum blood flow through the vessels fell by 17.5 percent and oxygen levels fell by 20 percent.

These results imply that vaping, even once, gives rise to momentary alterations that hinder blood vessel ability.

"This normal [blood circulation] response is blunted by e-cigarette exposure," and is likely due to the ingredients found in e-cigarettes, Wehrli told Live Science. E-cigarettes come in a wide variety of brands and flavorings and so they may have a large list of ingredients. But the basic ingredients, glycol and glycerol, are pretty much the same, he added.

Glycol and glycerol form notedly toxic substances when heated. In an earlier paper, the same team had showed that smoking e-cigarettes actually elicited a "toxic immune response" in the blood vessel lining.

However, these studies examined only the very short-term effects of vaping, and participants' blood vessels returned to normal within an hour or so, Wehrli said. So the "effect we see is transient," he said.

But because this effect is brief and wholly reversible, "it should not be assumed from this research that vaping is a cause of heart disease or permanent blood vessel damage," he said. "Further research will be needed to determine whether vaping poses a risk of irreversible blood vessel injury."