Can electronic cigarettes cause cardiac arrhythmias?

In a matter of a few years, e-cigarette use has grown dramatically in many countries, while the potential benefits and harms of vaping are still the subject of intense debate.

Since vaping does not involve combustion, it exposes users and those around them to little or no carcinogenic carbon monoxide, tar, or nitrosamines compared to conventional cigarettes.

However, electronic cigarettes can release aldehydes, particulates, and nicotine at levels comparable to combustion cigarettes.

Vaping can help smokers quit combustion cigarettes, but the lure of e-cigarettes may encourage young non-smokers to vape regularly when the long-term effects are still unknown. And if nicotine is used in e-cigarettes, then the addictiveness of nicotine can push them to start smoking traditional cigarettes.

Alex Carll’s team, from the University of Louisville in Kentucky, United States, has carried out a study whose results indicate that exposure to aerosols from electronic cigarettes can cause cardiac arrhythmias in animal models, both in the form of premature and delayed heartbeats .

The study results suggest that exposure to specific chemicals present in e-cigarette fluids promote arrhythmias and cardiac electrical dysfunction.

In fact, some cardiac effects of e-cigarette ingredients may even be worse than those of traditional cigarettes, judging by the results of the new study.

Alex Carll, in the foreground, and his colleague Matthew Nystoriak. (Photo: University of Louisville)

The study authors looked at the cardiac impact of inhaling e-cigarette aerosols from only the two main e-cigarette e-liquid ingredients (vegetable glycerin and nicotine-free propylene glycol) or flavored retail e-liquids with nicotine.

Carll and his colleagues found that any of the e-cigarette aerosols altered the animals’ heart rates.

The study is titled “E-cigarettes and Their Lone Constituents Induce Cardiac Arrhythmia and Conduction Defects in Mice.” And it has been published in the academic journal Nature Communications. (Font: NCYT by Amazings)