Vaping increases risk of stroke younger than traditional smoking

Vaping makes a person more likely to have a stroke at a younger age than traditional smoking says a new study.

According to a news release, the study found that stroke was more prevalent among traditional smokers, but those who use e-cigarettes have a 15 percent higher risk of having a stroke at a younger age.

Researchers looked at 79,852 adults with a history of stroke who had used traditional cigarettes or e-cigarettes. Of this group, 7,756 (9.72 percent) used e-cigarettes, 48,625 (60.91 percent) smoked traditional cigarettes, and 23,444 (39.37 percent) used both, the release says.

“The public needs to know that the safety of e-cigarettes have not been proved to be safe and should not be considered as an alternative to traditional smoking especially among people with existing risk factors such as history of heart attack, high blood pressure and high cholesterol,” the study’s co-lead author Urvish K. Patel, MD, MPH, research scholar and chief education officer in the department of public health and neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, says in the release.

Other findings presented in the study include:

• The median average age for e-cigarette users to have their first stroke was 48 years, compared to 59 years of age for people who smoked traditional cigarettes, and 50 years of age for those who used both.
• Traditional smokers were more likely to have a stroke than those who used e-cigarettes or both with 6.75 percent compared to 1.09 percent and 3.72 percent respectively.
• Among women who had strokes, 36.36 percent used e-cigarettes compared with 33.91 percent who smoked traditional cigarettes.

“These findings have clear implications for physicians, health care policymakers and tobacco product regulatory authorities who are advocating for new regulations on e-cigarette access, sales and marketing,” co-lead author, Neel Patel, MD, a research scholar in the department of public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, says in the release. “People need to be warned that e-cigarettes should not be promoted as an alternative option to smoking traditional, combustible cigarettes.”