A senior European cardiologist has called for public health campaigners to be careful of promoting e-cigarettes after new evidence linked them to potential cardiac risk.
The research, published in JAMA Cardiology, reports increased cardiac sympathetic activity and oxidative stress among those inhaling nicotine from e-cigarettes.
Professor Joep Perk, a spokesperson for the European Society of Cardiology, said the findings were purely observational and did not prove long-term risk from using the devices.
But, he said, the findings were "not at all surprising" as it was known that nicotine stimulates the central nervous system.
He added: "Studies like this give further confirmation that e-cigarettes are not harmless.
"If I was a minister of health I would put my efforts into public anti-smoking campaigns especially directed towards the younger generation, and not promote e-cigarettes as an alternative to smoking."
He added: "It is too large a step to say that these negative effects are proof that people are going to die early because they used e-cigarettes.
"To prove this you have to put people on e-cigarettes for 10 to 15 years and see how many die early – a study that will not be done for ethical reasons.
"The weakness of all studies in this field is that they are observational and small, and they look at indicators of vascular wall damage rather than incidence of cardiovascular disease or death."
The researchers compared 23 e-cigarette users with another 19 non-users.
Moheimani RS, et al. Increased cardiac sympathetic activity and oxidative stress in habitual electronic cigarette users: Implications for cardiovascular risk. JAMA Cardiology 1 February 1 2017; doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2016.5303. [abstract]
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