What We Learned After 6 Years and 800 People Studying the Long-Term Harms of Vaping

“Are e-cigarettes harmful to the body?” This has been one of the eternal debates surrounding e-cigarettes since their inception.

Despite numerous organizations, groups, and scholars worldwide attempting to uncover the truth, accurate information about e-cigarettes has not been conveyed to the public due to misleading media, resulting in misconceptions about e-cigarettes.
 
Even the UK Department of Health's official conclusion after years of research that “e-cigarettes are at least 95% less harmful than cigarettes” seems unconvincing in the face of various false messages.

This situation is largely due to the lack of long-term systematic research on e-cigarettes.

To be fair, as many anti-e-cigarette advocates argue, even if e-cigarettes do not show obvious harm to the body in the short term, what harm might they cause after years or decades of use? Tobacco products also do not cause significant changes in the body in the short term. (In comparison, carbon monoxide and tar begin to affect the body within 7 seconds to 2 hours after smoking.)

As e-cigarettes become more popular worldwide, they have evolved from initially being seen as “toys” to a series of complex social and public health issues, making the long-term safety of e-cigarette use a focal point of renewed attention and debate.

So what harm might long-term e-cigarette use cause to the body when measured in “years”?

As early as 2017, a research team led by Dr. Riccardo Polosa from the University of Catania and UCLA conducted a 3.5-year follow-up study on a group of 9 young e-cigarette users who had never smoked. They monitored vital signs, including coronary arteries, circulatory systems, and lungs. The research team also tracked a group of 12 individuals who neither smoked nor had ever used e-cigarettes as a reference comparison.

Main monitoring items:

● Blood pressure

● Heart rate

● Weight

● Lung function

● Respiratory symptoms

● Exhaled nitric oxide

● Exhaled carbon monoxide

● High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) of the lungs

Ultimately, the research team found that e-cigarette users did not show negative health outcomes; in fact, the results were almost indistinguishable from the normal non-smoking control group data.

The survey results also indicated that daily exposure to e-cigarette aerosol did not cause significant changes in health outcomes, including lung function and lung inflammation.

Additionally, no significant structural abnormalities were found in HRCT, nor were there records of respiratory symptoms.

Although the sample size was small and lacked comparison with smokers, the comparative analysis with the non-smoking group still reflects the potential risks of long-term e-cigarette use on health.

Professor Polosa mentioned during a research report presentation in Sydney, Australia: “It is reassuring to know that long-term e-cigarette use is unlikely to cause any significant health issues.”

In the 3.5-year study, researchers established a comprehensive set of standard health monitoring indicators. Even among those who consumed the most e-liquid daily and used e-cigarettes for the longest time, there was no evidence of heart or lung damage, and even average heart rate and blood pressure showed no changes.

It is important to note that young smokers often show signs of lung damage within just two years of starting to smoke.

Although this study's scale is limited, its significance is crucial because it is the first time long-term effects of e-cigarettes have been observed in a group of users without a smoking history. Previous studies were either time-limited or involved subjects with a smoking history, making it difficult to distinguish whether health issues were caused by cigarettes or e-cigarettes.

Just like the recently retracted paper on “e-cigarettes and heart disease,” it was challenging to determine whether heart damage was due to cigarettes or e-cigarettes since the subjects all had a smoking history.
  △ The original article published in Nature #p#分页标题#e#
This research result is good news for e-cigarette users, but it is also good news for smokers, as many have given up trying e-cigarettes due to continuous misleading partial studies and biased news reports.

This research was presented at the e-cigarette summit held in London, UK, on November 17, 2017, and published in the journal Nature.

Follow-up research is set to begin, lasting 6 years with 800 participants

Based on the findings of the 2017 study, Dr. Riccardo Polosa decided to conduct a larger follow-up study named “VERITAS” in 2020, seeking 800 participants from over 20 countries and regions for a long-term study lasting over 6 years to further understand the long-term harms of e-cigarettes on users.
 
Currently, almost all assessments of e-cigarette users' health status are based on individuals who have previously smoked, making it difficult to determine whether the effects on health stem from e-cigarettes or traditional cigarettes. This study will further validate the hypothesis that using e-cigarettes alone does not cause measurable health impacts.

The key to the research is to find a sufficiently large group of regular e-cigarette users without a smoking history, but such users only account for a small portion of the vaping population.
 
The VERITAS project is actively seeking participants, requiring good online networking skills, organizational abilities, and effective communication in written and spoken English (and their local language). Applicants must meet the legal age requirements to purchase and use e-cigarettes locally.

Perhaps the truth about the long-term harms of e-cigarettes will be revealed in six years.