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That vaping is not a healthy option is not surprising. Now, an article published in
Circulation shows that vaping has a long-term effect on the heart of adolescents, but especially in boys, but not in women
Conducted by researchers from
Ohio State University School of Medicine (USA) The work gives insight into what happens to the cardiovascular system of teenagers when they vape.
In the mouse trial, he found that vaping had a significant, long-term cardiovascular effect in men, but not in women. The animals were exposed to an e-cigarette aerosol mixture of propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin and nicotinestarting at the human equivalent of about 12 years and with exposure up to about 30 years in humans.
The results showed that vaping caused a reduction in heart function in men over time, but de women were not affected. The females also had substantially higher amounts of CYP2A5 (CYP2A6 in humans), an enzyme that breaks down nicotine, than the males.
“The results are surprising,” says Loren Wold, author of the study.
“The theory is that since the enzyme breaks down nicotine much faster, the nicotine isn’t in the circulation for as long and that may be why women exhibit protection from vaping,” he says.
These findings raise concerns about the effects of vaping, especially among young people.
Most e-cigarettes contain nicotine, an addictive drug that can harm the developing teen brain.
“We don’t know the long-term effects of vaping because these products have only been available since the early 2000s. We haven’t had the time to see what happens, especially with teenagers. This is the first study to assess cardiac function in adolescent mice exposed to e-cigarette aerosol,” says Wold.
The researchers clarify that this study has been developed with animals because it is not possible to enroll children in a study of these characteristics and “it gives an idea of the dangers of vaping.”
The next step in the research is to determine at what point during adolescent development the cardiac dysfunction and confirm whether the enzyme CYP2A6 helps protect women from developing heart problems caused by vaping.