A new study shows that the aerosols in nicotine e-cigarettes do not have the cellular effects caused by cigarette smoke, which can lead to blood vessel damage and a series of heart attacks.

The study also found that aerosols from heated tobacco products produced far fewer adverse cellular effects than cigarettes.

The research is critical because smokers are two to four times more likely to develop heart disease than non-smokers, and one in five smoking-related deaths is caused by cardiovascular disease.

But the implications of the study, published last month, go beyond those specific findings. Because it is part of the Replication Project, whose mission is to replicate the most well-known research conducted by tobacco companies to independently assess its scientific validity. Ten international scientific studies will be replicated to compare the toxicity levels of conventional cigarette smoke with e-cigarettes and heating products using human cells.

The program is run by the Accelerated Injury Reduction Center of Excellence (CoEHAR). The Sicily-based group has previously exposed deep methodological flaws in highly cited vaping research. It is now working to replace junk science with solid data, bearing in mind that industry research is often overlooked by tobacco control and wider public health organizations.

CoEHAR founder Dr. Riccardo Polosa told Filter: "By replicating the results generated by tobacco industry research on e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, we demonstrate that these results are reliable and trustworthy.

The new study was conducted by an international team of researchers affiliated with CoEHAR in independent laboratories in Indonesia, Oman, Russia, Serbia, Greece and the United States.

The finding is a strong rebuke to the Medical Association's repeated claims that using e-cigarettes or heated tobacco products is as dangerous as smoking, and advising patients to quit smoking and not switch.

The American Heart Association notes on its website that anyone who says vaping is safe is simply lying.

The researchers replicated a 2017 study by British American Tobacco (BAT) scientists showing that the inhibition of endothelial cell migration caused by cigarette smoke (the endothelium is the membrane lining the heart and blood vessels) is not caused by e-cigarettes aerosol exposure.

A Replica study using the Vype ePen3 and the heated tobacco products Glo Pro and IQOS 3 Duo confirmed the findings of the BAT study. It validates that switching to safer nicotine products can reduce harm and save lives.

"The interesting fact is that switching to non-burning products reduces blood vessel damage and prevents the likelihood of onset of smoking-related diseases such as arteriosclerosis and high blood pressure." Massimo, the study's author and co-director of the replication project Dr. Caruso said. "Our study once again challenges the idea that e-cigarettes or heated tobacco cause similar damage to combustible cigarettes."