CNN – Vaping has an immediate effect on how well the user’s blood vessels work, even if the e-cigarette doesn’t contain nicotine, according to new research.
The research showed that using an e-cigarette with or without nicotine also decreased a metric known as venous oxygen saturation, which may mean the person’s lungs were taking in less oxygen.
Over 1.6 million youths are vaping in middle and high school, according to the FDA.
More research will be needed to corroborate the findings and study the effects in the long term. But scientists say these results may mean that vaping regularly could lead to vascular disease down the road.
“People mistakenly believe that electronic cigarettes are safer alternatives to tobacco-based cigarettes, but this is actually not true,” said Dr. Marianne Nabbout, lead author of the study and a radiology resident at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, who did the research at the University of Pennsylvania.
Although e-cigarette aerosols don’t have the same cancer-causing contaminants as tobacco smoke, people still breathe in chemicals when they vape, and this study shows that it has an effect on the body.
E-cigarettes work by heating liquid that turns into a vapor that is inhaled by the user. But the vapor contains more than just water; depending on the device, it may also include substances like lead, nickel, formaldehyde, propylene glycol and glycerin.
“Even if there was no nicotine in the e-cigarette, there could be other components that may be harmful,” Nabbout said. “That is why I think we saw these significant effects, even when the subjects were not choosing the nicotine-based electronic cigarette.”
Nabbout and her colleagues looked at what happens to the bodies of cigarette smokers, e-cigarette vapers and vapers who used products without nicotine …
