Thus, you have swapped your cigarettes with a vape because you think that it is much less dangerous than smoking. However, a shocking new report shows that vaping, even without nicotine, can have some harmful effects on vascular health, predisposing the user to heart disease and other circulatory problems.
Conventional cigarettes are full of thousands of noxious substances, tar and carcinogenic substances. Although vaping removes most of these toxins, the belief that zero-nicotine vapes are absolutely safe is already on the negative path.
In case you were not a smoker previously, taking up a vape, even the nicotine free ones create unwanted risks to the body as per a recent study.
Researchers provided a comparison of the influence of nicotine-free vaping with common vaping and even ordinary cigarettes.
However, we would like to give a review on the main facts about vaping before we present the frightening findings.
What does vaping mean?
E-cigarettes (also called vapes) are the battery-powered smoking devices that vaporize a liquid and form an aerosol (or vapor) that is inhaled by the user. In contrast to traditional cigarettes, vapes do not burn tobacco, and they do not release thousands of harmful chemicals: on the contrary, they do not emit smoke or tar, which is why many think that they are a safer variant.
The juice
E-liquid or vape juice is prepared through a combination of vegetable glycerin and propylene glycol, which produces the thick vapor that people expel when they exhale. Although these are edible ingredients, the inhalation part is a whole different story.
When exposed to heat, the materials decompose into toxic products, which may irritate the air passages and airways causing:
Chronic coughing
Breathlessness
Lung inflammation
Yummy flavors
The additives that make vaping so delicious (fruity, minty, or even tasting like a dessert) usually contain poisonous substances. These are some of the chemicals:
Diacetyl: Diacetyl is associated with yet another serious lung disease, which is also referred to as popcorn lung
Benzaldehyde: A flavoring which is also an irritant to the respiratory system
Heavy metals: Vape coils may occasionally lead to traces of lead, nickel, and tin being released in the vapour
When exposed to smoke, when they are inhaled continuously, they might lead to lung damage and inflammation even in the absence of nicotine.
Dr. Michael Blaha, told John Hopkins Medicine: you are exposing yourself to every type of chemical we do not know yet and are very likely not safe.
Popular habit
The number of people who vape is increasing and “over 2 million middle, and high schoolers in the U.S. have been reported to use e-cig in 2021, and over 8 out of 10 youth were found to use flavored e-cig at the time,” as John Hopkins notes.
What I am however, most worried about the increase in vaping, is that individuals who would otherwise not have smoked, particularly young people are picking up the habit, Blaha said. When you switch to vaping instead of cigarette smoking, that is one thing. Getting vaping started to use nicotine is a very different matter. And, nicotine addictions usually result in the use of traditional tobacco products in the future.”
Shocking results
Inquiring minds in the 2024 research wanted to find out whether a negative health impact might still be due to the base liquids and chemicals added to provide flavor when vaping.
In order to do so, the researchers compared:
Nicotine-free vapes
Nicotine-containing vapes
Traditional cigarettes
None of them has expected tonic effect on the blood vessels work to some astonishment, all three had measurable adverse effect on the functionality of the blood vessels, so nicotine is not the sole villain of vaping risks.
Namely, the report places less emphasis on vascular dynamics after e-cigarette use when combined with nicotine compared to inhalation without nicotine, specifically stating that the decrease in its functionality was the highest after the use of e-cigarette with nicotine and the following value was after the use of e-cigarette without nicotine.
A scientist named Dr. Marianna Nabbout conducted the study in details stating that, the experiment is intended to reflect the extreme impact vaping and smoking can have on a variety of vascular beds throughout the human body.
More to the point, should the acute use of an e-cigarette be able to leave an impression that is directly visible at the vessels level, it is not out of the question that chronic use would result in vascular disease.
Have you been using an e-cigarette because it was an acceptable alternative to smoking and this new study should make you reconsider!
How do you feel about vaping? Tell us what you think and then share this story with others so that they would know the health impact associated with vaping!
