We all know that smoking is a cardiovascular disease risk because of the tar that we inhale when the cigarette burns.
Up to now, one solution has been e-cigarettes because they give us a tarless way to inhale nicotine.
But as evidence is piling up around the danger of e-cigarettes, a new study in the journal Radiology reveals what may be the most terrifying results yet.
Because they can ruin your heart in 16 puffs.
E-cigarettes are battery-operated devices that convert a liquid into aerosol and thereby enable us to inhale nicotine and fruity and herby flavors that taste good.
To simplify the question about the heart health of e-cigarettes, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania decided to test plain e-cigarettes without nicotine or flavors.
They recruited 31 people between the ages of 18 and 35, none of whom had smoked e-cigarettes before. They then used an MRI to examine their arteries after taking 16 three-second puffs of an e-cigarette loaded with plain vape juice, consisting mostly of water and either glycerol or propylene glycol, the standard ingredients.
To check the flexibility of blood vessels, the scientists constricted the vessels of the thigh with a cuff and then measured how quickly the blood vessels expanded again for normal blood flow after they released the cuff.
Flexible blood vessels that contract and expand quickly for variable blood flow are healthy; stiff vessels that cannot expand to allow enough blood flow are unhealthy. That is basically what cholesterol does to your blood vessels that is so dangerous.
After inhaling the vape juice, the researchers observed:
1. a 34 percent reduction in the ability of blood vessels to expand,
2. a 17.5 percent reduction in peak blood flow,
3. a 20 percent reduction in the oxygen carried by the veins, and
4. a 25.8 percent reduction in the speed at which the blood returned to the normal flow after the cuff release.
This means that it is not only tar and nicotine that make smoking hazardous: the inhalation of vape juice from e-cigarettes causes less blood flow through our bodies, less oxygen in our blood, and stiffer blood vessels.
And this was from only 16 puffs. Imagine what happens if you smoke e-cigarettes day in and day out.
At this stage, it is not obvious why this is the case, as glycerol and propylene glycol are safe to eat. Our bodies obviously don’t like it when they are heated and inhaled.
The good news is that, whether or not you smoke, you can drop your blood pressure below 120/80 – as soon as today – using the simple exercises found here…
And if your cholesterol is too high, normalize it in days by cutting out this ONE ingredient you didn’t even know you were consuming…