"And for every year without cigarettes, the risk of stroke decreases"
There is no link between daily e-cigarette use and heart attacks. This is according to a new study published in SAGE magazine.
"For every year after quitting smoking, the risk of heart attack decreases. The effect is not immediate, whether you use e-cigarettes or not. But after 6 years, the risk starts to get much lower. And it continues to be low, even among e-cigarette users who vejpar daily."
So says the Greek cardiologist Konstantinos Farsalinos, which led the study. The it was presented at the annual congress of the European Society of Cardiology in Paris.
Heart attacks and e-cigarettes
The Greek research team's report is a risk analysis based on two large US observational studies conducted between 2014 and 2016. Previous analyses of the same studies have suggested that the rate of heart attacks is the same whether you use e-cigarettes or cigarettes. Tobacco researcher Stanton Glantz after analyzing the same material claimed that "e-cigarettes can be as dangerous as regular cigarettes". The study has received much attention, but has now was withdrawn due to shortcomings in the evidence base.
Small risks of nicotine
Other researchers were puzzled by the reasoning of the Glanz study. The majority of other studies pointed to something else. The only common factor between e-cigarettes and cigarettes is nicotine. And nicotine itself is not usually a significant factor in developing cardiovascular disease.
"For example, we have long-term studies on Swedish snus that show very small risks of nicotine in relation to heart attacks. The risks are there, but they are minimal," says Konstantinos Farsalinos.
The aforementioned studies are based on questionnaires in which over 70,000 Americans answered questions about their health and medical history. When the Greek research team looked at the baseline data for the studies, they found questions that for some reason had not been included in Glanz's study. They were "How old were you when you started using e-cigarettes, once or twice a week or regularly?" and the question "How old were you when you found out you had a heart attack?"
The risk decreases over time
According to Farsalinos, this was crucial to finding out the link between heart attacks and e-cigarettes.
"Especially when it comes to the time it takes to develop a heart attack. It is complicated to study because most, 95%, of US vejpers are smokers or former smokers. A heart attack develops over a long period of time and is clearly linked to smoking" says Konstantinos Farsalinos.
Therefore, it became important to include the length of time between smoking cessation and the rate of heart attacks, also among e-cigarette users, according to Konstantinos Farsalinos.
"We know that with each passing year, the risk for ex-smokers decreases. The risk does not decrease immediately, whether you use e-cigarettes or not. But after 6 years, the risk starts to get much lower. And it stays low, even if you use 1TP8 daily" says Konstantinos Farsalinos.
Researching e-cigs for 10 years
The Greek research team's study is published in the academic online journal SAGE Journals. Konstantinos Farsalinos hopes that other researchers will now realize the difficulty of drawing conclusions about the impact of e-cigarettes on users' health.
"It is difficult to refer to direct clinical studies in terms of cardiovascular diseases for vejpare" says Konstantinos Farsalinos, who has been researching e-cigarettes for almost a decade.
"This is because almost all users are former smokers, often with the risks associated with long-term smoking. Observational studies (where participants are asked questions about their health) are limiting. But our study shows that with careful analysis of the data, valuable information can be obtained about the absolute impact of e-cigarettes on users' health" says Konstantinos Farsalinos.
