Recently, Italy, the United States and other multinational medical teams jointly published a paper pointed out that the cardiovascular damage of electronic cigarettes is far less than cigarettes, cigarettes will increase the risk of smokers suffering from coronary heart disease, cerebral infarction, stroke and other critical diseases, electronic cigarettes will almost not affect cardiovascular health.
According to the World Heart Federation (WHF), 550 million people worldwide suffer from cardiovascular disease and 20.5 million die from heart disease and stroke each year. The study, led by the Centre of Excellence for Accelerated Tobacco Harm Reduction (CoEHAR) at the University of Catania in Italy, examined the impact of cigarettes and e-cigarettes on vascular endothelial wound healing, a key indicator of vascular health. The lower the healing force, the more easily the wound causes atherosclerosis, and then induces cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, endangering life.
The results showed that cigarette smoking significantly reduced the healing force of vascular endothelial wounds. As little as 12.5% of cigarette smoke can inhibit wound healing, and the higher the concentration, the greater the adverse effects. In contrast, both high and low concentrations of e-fumes, even at 100%, had no significant effect on wound healing.
“This shows that harmful substances that damage cardiovascular health must be in cigarettes, but not in e-cigarettes.” Even if they are in e-cigarettes, the levels are not low enough to be harmful.” “The authors wrote in the paper.
The researchers first excluded nicotine, which is present in both cigarettes and e-cigarettes. Nicotine is not carcinogenic and has never appeared on the list of carcinogens published by the World Health Organization. The authors also emphasize in the paper that there is evidence that nicotine does not induce atherosclerosis.
The harmful substances in cigarettes are basically produced when the tobacco is burned. Studies show that tobacco burning produces more than 4,000 chemicals, including 69 carcinogens such as tar and nitrosamines, as well as a large number of oxidizing substances (which can cause DNA damage and cell necrosis). The researchers analyzed that a large amount of oxidized substances should be the “culprit” of damaging the cardiovascular system. E-cigarettes do not contain the tobacco burning process, so they do not produce large amounts of oxidizing substances.
Not only that, smokers switch to electronic cigarettes can also play a role in reducing harm. Studies have shown that after smokers switch to electronic cigarettes for 1 month, vascular endothelial function has been effectively improved. “The cardiovascular risks of cigarettes are clear and helping smokers quit is a priority.”
Quitting tobacco is described on the World Health Organization’s website as “quitting tobacco.” A number of authoritative studies have confirmed that e-cigarettes can significantly improve the success rate of smokers quitting tobacco, and the smoking cessation effect is better than nicotine replacement therapy. “E-cigarettes support smokers’ willingness to continue to try to quit, which is very commendable.” Riccardo Polosa, founder of the Centre of Excellence for Accelerated Tobacco Harm Reduction (CoEHAR) at the University of Catania in Italy.
In a recent speech, Riccardo Polosa pointed out that the promotion of e-cigarettes by public health agencies will help reduce the smoking rate (cigarette users/total number of people *100%) and improve the public health environment: “Even the die-hards in tobacco control agencies who are most reluctant to accept e-cigarettes have to admit that e-cigarettes are effective harm reduction products.” If harm reduction strategies can be adopted to make smokers switch to e-cigarettes, the risk of disease will be greatly reduced.”