More evidence that e-cigarettes have rapid negative effects on arteries

Interfering with normal functioning of arteries, both immediate effects on arteries’ ability to enlarge when the body needs more blood flow and longer term effects on arterial stiffness, are important mechanisms by which exposure to tobacco smoke causes heart disease and triggers heart attacks.
 
There is already human evidence showing large immediate effects of e-cigarette aerosol on arterial function.  Now, a new experimental study using mice has shown the same thing, as well as effects on longer term changes in arterial stiffness.  A new study showing just that was presented at an American Physiological Society symposium on cardiac aging by Mark Olfert titled “Acute and chronic effects of e-cigarette vapor exposure on vascular function: new friend or old foe?”  Here is a summary of their presentation from the APS website:
 

The researchers studied artery diameter, the blood vessels’ ability to widen (vasodilation) and aortic stiffness in female mice after short- and long-term exposure to flavored e-cig vapor. Aortic stiffness is an age-related complication in the heart’s main artery (aorta) that can be an indicator of cardiovascular disease. They found that within an hour of the five-minute e-cig exposure, the short-term group’s arteries narrowed by approximately 30 percent. Vasodilation decreased as well.
 
Long-term exposure to e-cig vapor (20 hours per week over a period of eight months) also produced negative effects of chronic e-cig use, including aortic stiffness, which was more than twice as high as control groups exposed to normal room air. “These data indicate that e-cigs should not be considered safe and that they induce significant deleterious effects” on blood vessel function, wrote the authors.