Professor Polosa is Director of the Institute of Internal Medicine and Antismoking Center at the University of Catania. Last June he received the INNCO Global Award, an honor that is bestowed upon advocacy warriors who strive to make a positive impact in the battle against smoking.
The study titled, Health impact of E-cigarettes: a prospective 3.5-year study of regular daily users who have never smoked, was published in the Journal Scientific Reports last month. It consisted of a 3.5-year observational study of a cohort of nine daily vapers who have never smoked and a reference group of twelve non-smokers who do not vape.
The researchers observed the participants’ blood pressure, heart rate, body weight, lung function, respiratory symptoms, exhaled breath nitric oxide [eNO], exhaled carbon monoxide [eCO], and even reported outcomes of high-resolution computed tomography [HRCT] of the lungs, over the 3.5 years over which the study was conducted.
No significant changes were observed between vapers and non-vapers
“No significant changes could be detected over the observation period from baseline in the EC users or between EC users and control subjects in any of the health outcomes investigated,” read the study Abstract. “Moreover, no pathological findings could be identified on HRCT of the lungs and no respiratory symptoms were consistently reported in the EC user group.”
The researchers concluded that although the occurrence of harm at later stages should not be excluded, at this stage no health concerns associated with long term e-cigarette use were observed.
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