Electronic cigarettes, an increasingly popular option among smokers trying to quit, do not appear to pose a threat to the heart, according to results of a new clinical study.
Greek researchers said that e-cigarettes - which are battery-powered metal tubes that transform liquid laced with nicotine into vapour - had no adverse effects on cardiac function in their small trial.
"Electronic cigarettes are not a healthy habit, but they are a safer alternative to tobacco cigarettes," Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos from the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Centre in Athens told the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology.
"Considering the extreme hazards associated with cigarette smoking, currently available data suggest that electronic cigarettes are far less harmful and substituting tobacco with electronic cigarettes may be beneficial to health."
Farsalinos and his team examined the heart function of 20 young smokers before and after smoking one tobacco cigarette. They compared it against that of 22 e-cigarette users before and after using the device for seven minutes.
While the tobacco smokers suffered significant heart dysfunction, including raised blood pressure and heart rate, those using e-cigarettes had only a slight elevation in pressure.