. Most e-cigarettes contain nicotine, an addictive drug that can harm the developing adolescent brain.
“We don’t know the long-term effects of vaping because it’s only been around since the early 2000s. We haven’t had the time required to see what happens, especially with adolescents. To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate cardiac function in adolescent mice exposed to e-cigarette aerosol,” said Loren Wold, the study’s senior author and associate dean for research operations and compliance in the Ohio State College of Medicine.
An animal study like this is important because it’s not possible to enroll children in a study like this. These types of studies give us an idea of the dangers of vaping so we can develop therapies as well as inform parents and public policymakers on the risks of vaping.
The mice were exposed to an e-cigarette aerosol mixture of propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin and nicotine, starting at the human equivalent of about age 12 and lasting until about age 30 in humans.
Researchers found reduced heart function in males over time, but heart function in females remained unaffected. The theory is that since the enzyme breaks down nicotine so much faster, the nicotine isn’t in the circulation as long and that may be why females exhibit protection from vaping.
The next step in the research is to determine at what point during adolescent development the cardiac dysfunction is occurring and confirm if the enzyme helps protect females from developing heart problems brought on by vaping.
Source: Medindia
