A new study shows that the aerosols in nicotine e-cigarettes do not produce the cellular effects caused by cigarette smoke that lead to blood vessel damage and a range 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 than non-smokers to suffer from heart disease, and one in five smoking-related deaths is attributable to cardiovascular disease.

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

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

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

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

The findings are a strong rebuke to the medical association's repeated claims that using e-cigarettes or heated tobacco products is as dangerous as smoking cigarettes, and that patients are advised to quit, not switch. The American Heart Association has pointed out on its website that anyone who says vaping is safe is simply lying.

The researchers replicated a 2017 study by scientists at British American Tobacco (BAT) that showed inhibition of endothelial cell migration induced by cigarette smoke, but not aerosol exposure by e-cigarettes.

The 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 reduces harm and saves lives.

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