Regularly using e-cigarettes could put users at risk of dementia, heart disease and organ failure, a bombshell first-of-its-kind study revealed today.
Britons are taking up vaping in unprecedented numbers, with roughly one in ten adults now estimated to be hooked on the habit.
Yet, while vapes are generally considered safer than cigarettes and a useful tool for quitting smoking, surveys have found around 8 per cent of adult vapers have never even smoked before.
Now, researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University, believe the gadgets could pose an even worse health threat than cigarettes.
They say this is because e-cigs allow people to inhale nicotine in a vapour — produced by heating a liquid, that typically contains propylene glycol, glycerine, flavourings, and other chemicals.
Experts are concerned that this high nicotine content increases heart rate and blood pressure making blood vessels constrict and damaging artery walls.
Scientists today urged Brits against taking up the habit and warned ‘the dangers for someone who keeps vaping are no different from smokers’.
Dr Maxime Boidin, an expert in cardiac rehabilitation and study lead, told The Mirror: ‘Smokers tend to go outside and smoke, and once a cigarette is finished they have to light up another to keep going.
Britons are taking up vaping in unprecedented numbers, with roughly one in ten adults now estimated to be hooked on the habit
‘But with vapes, you just keep going and it’s much harder to know how many puffs you’ve had.
‘It’s much easier to vape continuously because you can do it in places where smoking might be less acceptable.’
‘What we have found is the dangers for someone who keeps vaping are no different from smokers.
Despite NHS chiefs insisting it is safer than smoking, experts have long said vaping is not risk-free.
E-cigarettes contain harmful toxins and their long-term effects remains a mystery.
Doctors have expressed fears there could be a wave of lung disease, dental issues and even cancer in the coming decades in people who took up the habit at a young age.
In the study, researchers tracked volunteers, aged 27 on average all of whom had a similar level of fitness.
They were given regular stress tests to measure the elasticity of their blood vessels and the speed of blood flow to their brains.
Campaigners have long blamed predatory manufacturers for the ever-growing crisis, claiming they are intentionally luring kids in with colourful packaging, compared to highlighter pens, and child-friendly flavours such as bubblegum and cotton candy
For 12 hours prior to each test, they consumed only water and desisted from vaping, smoking and exercise.
According to Dr Boidin, the mediated dilation (FMD) test — where in which a cuff is placed on the participant’s arm to measure how much the artery expands as more blood is passed through it — produced the starkest results on vaping’s effects.
Both smokers and vapers achieved a flat reading, signalling they had damaged artery walls that can no longer dilate – an almost certain sign of future serious cardiovascular problems, Dr Boidin added.
Further tests proved that the blood flow in smokers and vapers is similarly impaired, making them at risk of developing cognitive dysfunction, including dementia.
He said: ‘When you put this mixture of metals and chemicals into your body you can’t expect nothing to happen.
‘The only benefit of vaping is to help people quit smoking, but if they keep vaping the result is going to be the same.
‘I think doctors should be able to prescribe vapes for a certain time, so they could be used as a transition tool, but only for a short time.’
Last year, MailOnline also discovered the number of adverse side effects linked to vaping reported to UK regulators has now eclipsed 1,000, with five of them fatal.
The extensive list includes everything from headaches to strokes. Members of the public and medics can submit them.
In July, in world-first guidance setting out possible interventions to help people stop using tobacco products, the World Health Organization labelled the evidence around e-cigarettes as ‘complex’.
Vapes cannot be recommended as way to stop smoking as too little is known about the harms and benefits, the UN agency said.
The Government has announced that disposable vapes will be banned from June.
But responding to the study today, Dr Marina Murphy, scientific spokesperson for the UK Vaping Industry Association, said: ‘Millions of people have been using vaping products safely for many years.
‘All the available data suggests that vapes are unlikely to exceed 5 per cent of the health risks associated with cigarettes.’