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E-cigarettes are harmful to the lungs
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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A recent study has found that despite being marketed as a potentially safer alternative to regular cigarettes, e-cigarettes are still dangerous to the human respiratory tract.
The study's findings were presented at the European Respiratory Society's Annual Congress in Vienna and provide new evidence against cigarette alternatives.
When smoking electronic cigarettes, a person receives nicotine not through smoke, but through steam. Although the harmful combustion process does not occur in this case, the electronic device is still an analogue of a regular cigarette with tobacco. The emergence of electronic cigarettes has caused heated discussions about their advertised harmlessness, but neither supporters nor opponents of the new smoking devices could boast of convincing scientific arguments.
Greek scientists from the University of Athens decided to study the short-term effects of using e-cigarettes on different people, including those who had no health problems, as well as smokers with normal and damaged lungs.
The study included 8 people who had never smoked and 24 smokers, of whom 11 had normal lung function and 13 had either chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or asthma.
Each of these people smoked an e-cigarette for ten minutes. Afterwards, scientists checked the condition of their respiratory tract using a series of tests, including spirometry.
The results showed that e-cigarettes caused a sharp increase in airway resistance for ten minutes in the study participants. In those who had never smoked, airway resistance increased to 206 percent, compared to the normal value of 182 percent.
In smokers without lung problems, this figure rose from 176 to 220 percent. In patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma, the use of one e-cigarette did not cause an increase in airway resistance.
"We don't really know whether alternative nicotine products like e-cigarettes are safer than regular cigarettes, even though advertising would have us believe that they are. This study helps us understand how potentially dangerous these products can be," says Professor Cristina Gratziu, one of the authors of the study.
"We found a sharp increase in airway resistance in our study participants, suggesting that e-cigarettes can cause harm to people immediately after use. Further research is needed to understand whether the harmful effects of e-cigarettes persist in the long term," added Professor Gratziu.
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