Even after puffing on just one electronic cigarette with nicotine, healthy non-smokers were found to have a biological marker known to increase the risk of heart disease in tobacco users, according to a new study. The research, published in Journal of the American Heart Association, shows that nicotine is not harmless, as many people believe. It can affect a smoker’s health in more than one way, and not just by triggering addiction.
“There is this old saying that people smoke for the nicotine, cause it’s so addictive, but they die from the tar,” says study co-author Holly Middlekauff, a cardiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. This belief that nicotine is generally safe led to nicotine-replacement therapies in the 1970s...
