Researchers studied 33 healthy adults who were not current e-cigarette or tobacco cigarette smokers. Each study participant used an e-cigarette with nicotine, an e-cigarette without nicotine or an empty device on different days.
The researchers measured cardiac adrenaline activity by examining heart rate variability and oxidative stress in blood samples by measuring the enzyme plasma paraoxonase.
The study showed e-cigarettes with nicotine resulted in increased adrenaline levels in the heart. E-cigarettes without nicotine did not increase adrenaline levels. Exposure to e-cigarettes with and without nicotine did not affect oxidative stress. However, researchers noted more studies are required for oxidative stress, as the number of markers they studied was minimal.
“Our study showed that acute electronic cigarette use with nicotine increases cardiac adrenaline levels,” Holly Middlekauff, MD, senior study author and professor of medicine (cardiology) and physiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “And it’s in the same pattern that is associated with increased cardiac risk in patients who have known cardiac disease, and even in patients without known cardiac disease. I think that just seeing this pattern at all is very concerning and it would hopefully discourage nonsmokers from taking up electronic cigarettes.”
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