KUCHING: Cardiologists here have urged smokers and vapers to cut down or even stop completely as they are at risk of suffering from lung problems.
Consultant cardiologist of Sarawak Heart Centre (PJS), Dr Alan Fong said although the epidemiological link between vaping and heart attack had not been fully established, the vape liquid was harmful enough to cause lung injury.
“On the question of whether or not vaping contributes to the high number of heart attack cases in Sarawak, it is unclear.
“But what is clear at the moment is that vaping can cause lung injury,” he told New Sarawak Tribune.
“Cigarette smoking of tobacco, you are more likely to get a heart attack when you are younger and get your arteries blocked quicker,” he said.
“As for vaping, it is a new thing. Hence, the link between vaping and heart attack is not fully established.
“But we know that the vape is the liquid, and we know that liquid contains things that we don’t know, where the liquid is made, who is making it, what goes in it.”
Meanwhile, PJS clinical cardiologist Dr Joshua Chung Bui Khiong stressed that vaping should not be encouraged.
“We all know that tobacco is a big enemy of the heart and causes heart attacks.
“As for vaping, not so much but evidence shows that it causes lung problems due to the vaping chemicals.”
According to the National Health and Morbidity Survey in 2019, there were about 1.1 million e-cigarette or vapers in Malaysia.
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin recently said that two cases of E-cigarette Or Vaping Product Use-Associated Lung Injury (Evali) were reported in 2019, eight in 2021, and four were recorded between June and September last year.
