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We've got some bad news if you like vaping

Might want to put that neon pipe down

We've got some bad news if you like vaping
30 August 2016

You might want to put that e-cig on charge as you read through the findings of the latest study on vaping. 

Researchers meeting at the European Society for Cardiology congress in Rome have stubbed out previous suggestions from the Public Health England body that vaping is 95 per cent safer than smoking, claiming that e-cigarettes can have the same impact on the health of your heart as a regular cigarette. 

Professor Robert West of University College London told the assembled conference that e-cigs are "far more dangerous than people realise". 

A new study on the short-term impact of e-cigarettes saw scientists test 24 participants' hearts after five minutes smoking cigarettes and after a 30-minute vaping session. It was found that the vaping session would result in the same levels of arterial stiffness - a main predictor of heart diseases and a condition that lead to other fatal scenarios - as compared to smoking cigarettes.

"The study shows electronic cigarettes cannot be assumed to be risk free," said professor Peter Weissberg, medical director at the British Heart Foundation. "Much more research is needed to establish the safety of long-term use of these devices."

However, the study also found that if vaping sessions were limited to five minutes, the stiffening of the aortic passages was much less than that of smoking a normal cigarette - a point that Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, felt wasn't highlighted clearly enough. "This study does not prove that e-cigarettes are as hazardous as smoking," she told the Telegraph.

Another recent study found that smokers switching from regular cigarettes to e-cigs had significantly reduced their exposure to carcinogens - which is great news.

If you're going to smoke anything, you're probably still better off making it an e-cig over a cigarette. Either way, inhaling stuff isn't the healthiest of habits to be engaging in.