Mechanisms of vascular endothelial dysfunction in chronic e-cigarette users

More than 5.6 million US adults use e-cigarettes. E-cigarette use (“vaping”) is highest among adolescents and young adults, many who have never used smoked tobacco cigarettes – reflective of a growing population of exclusive e-cigarette users. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a primary cause of premature death among cigarette smokers, but whether vaping causes CVD is unknown. Due to the recency of e-cigarette introduction to market (early 2000’s) epidemiologic data will not be able to describe if e-cigarette use corresponds with increased lifetime CVD risk. There is an urgent need to examine preclinical markers that may predict and precede the development of CVD in vaping adults to identify an opportunity for prevention. This study is one of the first to examine compare blood vessel function between young adults (18-24) who have never vaped and those who habitually (≥6months) and exclusively use e-cigarettes. We are the first to study whether vaping effects blood vessel function males and females differently.

We found that before the onset of disease, young, otherwise healthy e-cigarette users have blood vessel dysfunction that may put them at higher risk of developing CVD. Our data show that female e-cigarette users have greater reductions in vessel function may be at even higher risk than vaping males. The blood vessel dysfunction in these subjects is, in part, related to an increase in oxidative stress, and specifically an overabundance of superoxide. Further research is necessary to understand exactly how vaping causes this increase, and what causes the observed differences between males and females.