Just this past week, a new study was released showing that the use of electronic cigarettes is not associated with acute adverse effects on cardiac function. According to researchers from the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center in Athens, Greece, they reported that eCigs are considerably less harmful than smoking tobacco while at the European Society for Cardiology 2012 Conference in Munich, Germany.
This is good news for the over 2.5 million people in the United States who are estimated to smoke electronic cigarettes. Researcher Konstantinos Farsalinos, MD, also added, “Considering the hazards associated with cigarette smoking, currently available data suggest that electronic cigarettes are far less harmful, and substituting tobacco with electronic cigarettes may be beneficial to health.”
Of course many more studies will have to be performed before any firm conclusions are made about their safety, however, the news is certainly encouraging and likely not very surprising to the many who have quit smoking traditional cigarettes in favor of vaping. That illustrious smoker’s cough that many tobacco smokers develop, frequently disappears after the switch is made to eCigs.
With e-cigarettes currently the only device that satisfies both the chemical craving for nicotine as well as the psychological addiction that comes from having something in your hand as well as lighting it, inhaling and exhaling, many preliminary studies have shown that attacking the addiction from both sides helps many more people quit the tobacco habit.
Scientists in the study found that after smoking one tobacco cigarette, acute myocardial dysfunction was clearly detected, but after using an e-cigarette for seven minutes, no adverse effects on cardiac function were detected.
In addition, according to Russell Luepker, MD, of the American Heart Association, “The e-cigarette has the advantage of not having the thousands of other chemicals, besides nicotine, that a real cigarette has.”
While it remains to be seen what the future holds for e-cigarettes, the initial outlook appears to be good news for those who hope to quit smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes, although it may be seen as bad news for the profits of the big tobacco companies.