Chinese scholars' latest discovery: e-cigarettes have far lower impact on cardiovascular cells than cigarettes

September 15, 2023

* Smoking is harmful to health, e-cigarettes are prohibited for minors and not recommended for non-smokers

On April 7, the authoritative SCI journal Human and Experimental Toxicology in the field of global toxicology published the latest research paper by a research team from Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), which shows that compared with cigarettes, e-cigarettes are relatively less harmful to human vascular endothelial cells, demonstrating a more pronounced "harm reduction effect".
The paper is the first empirical research on the effects of e-cigarettes on human vascular endothelial cells in China, and the first author is Associate Professor Su Le of Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences). The paper compares the RELX e-cigarette, which is more common in China, with a brand of cigarettes, and collects smoke from e-cigarettes and cigarettes to test the effects of the two types of products on human vascular endothelial cells at the same nicotine concentration.

Vascular endothelial cells are closely related to cardiovascular health and the development of related diseases. The study showed that e-cigarettes were less likely than cigarettes to cause inflammation of cardiovascular cells. The effects of different flavors of e-cigarette smoke on vascular endothelial cell survival were all much lower than those of cigarette smoke. At nicotine concentrations less than 0.5 µg/mL, there was no significant decrease in cell survival in any of the e-cigarette groups, whereas the cigarette group had a decrease in cell survival of about 30%.
Pro-inflammatory cytokines are key proteins in the human body that increase inflammatory responses that lead to disease. The current study also compared the effects of cigarette smoke and e-cigarettes on pro-inflammatory factors.
It was found that cells exposed to cigarette smoke collection had significantly increased levels of pro-inflammatory factor secretion, which may accelerate inflammation, compared to cells exposed to e-cigarette smoke collection, which did not show any significant change in levels of pro-inflammatory factor secretion after 12 hours, and that the levels of pro-inflammatory factor secretion by cells in each of the e-cigarette groups were still much lower than those in the cigarette group after 24 hours.

In the current study, the researchers compared several different flavors of e-cigarettes, such as cola, watermelon, green bean, grape, etc., and found that although there were some differences in the effects of the flavors on human vascular endothelial cells, the overall effects were significantly lower than that of cigarettes.
For example, after 48 hours of treatment of human vascular endothelial cells with 0.125 μg/mL nicotine concentration smoke collection, 32.5% of the cells in the cigarette group underwent apoptosis, while the apoptosis rate of cola-flavored e-cigarettes was 2.5%, which was only 1/13 of that of cigarettes; after 48 hours of treatment of the cells with 32 μg/mL nicotine concentration smoke collection, the cell viability of the cigarette group dropped to 57.7%, while the cell viability of cola- and watermelon-flavored e-cigarettes decreased to 57.7%, and that of cola and watermelon-flavored e-cigarettes decreased to 57.7%. , while cell survival in the cola and watermelon flavored e-cigarette group was almost unaffected.
"We found that under the experimental conditions, e-cigarettes had less effect on human vascular endothelial cells than cigarettes." Associate Professor Sule said, "This suggests that e-cigarettes, although not completely harmless, have the potential to be used as a harm-reducing alternative to cigarettes."

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