E-cigarettes may be just as dangerous to your heart as regular cigarettes

Smoking e-cigarettes may not be as safe as previously thought, The Telegraph reports. Researchers at the European Society of Cardiology’s Congress in Rome this week presented a study that found that aortic stiffness during a 30-minute vaping session was similar to that when a person smokes a regular cigarette.

The study enrolled 24 adults who were active smokers and monitored them while they smoked an e-cigarette and a regular cigarette. Lead researcher Charalambos Vlachopoulos, MD, of the University of Athens Medical School, told The Telegraph that the long-term effects of vaping were unknown. However, he said he would not recommend e-cigarettes.

“The value of the acute study is that it gives an insight of how long your aorta is stressed throughout the daybecause this happens throughout the day, this is something that happens repeatedly,” Vlachopoulos told The Telegraph. “There could be long term heart dangers. They are far more dangerous than people realize.”

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Tim Casey,

Executive Editor

Tim Casey joined TriMed Media Group in 2015 as Executive Editor. For the previous four years, he worked as an editor and writer for HMP Communications, primarily focused on covering managed care issues and reporting from medical and health care conferences. He was also a staff reporter at the Sacramento Bee for more than four years covering professional, college and high school sports. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA degree from Georgetown University.

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