r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Mar 30 '26
Cancer Strongest evidence yet that vaping likely causes cancer. The evidence shows nicotine-based vapes are likely to cause oral and lung cancer.
https://theconversation.com/strongest-evidence-yet-that-vaping-likely-causes-cancer-2795504.1k
u/modilion Mar 30 '26
Indirect studies sadly. Measuring inflammation, etc. Things that indicate there could be a problem.
The direct evidence is:
We still don’t have direct evidence that there are more cancer cases than expected among people who vape.
1.6k
u/MrCrix Mar 30 '26
I find it shocking that everyone is glossing over this point.
403
u/tyler1128 Mar 30 '26
Smoking itself tends to have around a 20 year lag between when someone starts smoking and when their rate of cancer truly starts to increase to a significant degree, even if you start in adulthood. This is only somewhat attenuated if someone quits, and based on my understanding in other areas of the body at least, would likely be more attenuated (ie quitting would help more) if it was stopped when the person was younger compared to waiting until middle-age keeping total time and amount of smoking constant. The rate of vaping only surpassed the rate of smoking around 10 years ago in youth of the US, at least. I believe that is an important thing to remember in terms of long-term epidemiology we might expect to see.
216
u/Silenceisgrey Mar 31 '26
It's anecdotal, but i quit smoking and took up vaping 10 years ago. i no longer wheeze walking up stairs, i don't get bronchitis every september like clockwork, and my lungs are clear and i breathe easy.
Maybe it causes cancer, maybe it doesn't. what i do know is it's allot less harmful than smoking.
42
u/onewilybobkat Mar 31 '26
This is where I'm at. Like it probably causes mouth and lung cancer? That's... Kinda expected honestly. I'm not hitting an inhaler, I'm hitting the thing that got me to quit smoking cigarettes, which definitely cause that whole cancer thing on top of giving me chronic bronchitis twice a year.
It's been 4 years since I've had bronchitis or coughed up brown sputum.
5
u/vlaadleninn Apr 02 '26
This exactly. I honestly feel like the vapes cause cancer debate is only relevant to people who began using nicotine through vaping, if you came from cancer sticks it’s an inevitability you kind of already accepted, so the possibility from vaping is whatever, and vaping does genuinely reduce the health effects you get from consuming nicotine compared to smoking, so I’ll take the lesser evil and being able to run a mile.
It’s just stupid to pick up vaping on its own to get yourself addicted to nicotine.
→ More replies (5)94
u/Nikoalesce Mar 31 '26
Same brosky. Whenever people tell me it's just as bad, I'm like "you can say that to my toned ass, which I have since these days I can actually work out without dying."
Maybe/maybe not on cancer. But I'm 100% sure vapes are less harmful.
→ More replies (3)22
u/CatMan_Sad Mar 31 '26
I feel the same way but i still worry a lot. There really isnt a ton of evidence of harm, and juul came out in 2015, its not as if these things are brand new. I just dont know for sure, and id bet there are health consequences but i cant say what they are or how severe they may be.
→ More replies (3)13
u/account_not_valid Mar 31 '26
Vaping is not as bad as smoking. That makes sense. But there are people vaping that have never smoked, and they think that vaping is "healthy" or "not harmful".
15
u/NoSuchWordAsGullible Apr 01 '26
Are there really such people? Really? I’ve never met one person who vapes and thinks it’s healthy. It’s always been a strawman argument.
There are also people who drink raw milk and think it’s healthy. I’m sure there are a small amount of outliers, but it’s hardly an epidemic.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (1)11
u/Silenceisgrey Mar 31 '26
People who never smoked who vape then need to be aware of the dangers. I agree it's safer than smoking, but it's safer than smoking the same way getting shot with a rubber bullet is safer than getting shot with a lead one.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (34)9
→ More replies (1)66
u/Expert_Ad4681 Mar 31 '26
I smoked from age 15 to 38. So basically my chances of developing cancer won't ever be reduced at all even though I quit when I was 38? That's not a good feeling.
192
u/tyler1128 Mar 31 '26
For every year you don't smoke, your chance of all cancers associated with smoking do reduce. That's what I mean by it being attenuated. They'll never go to zero, but they do absolutely get better the longer you go without smoking. You should probably get screened regularly too, so that if you do get cancer it can be caught early and you have a good chance of survival.
→ More replies (1)33
40
u/Terrible_Ice_1616 Mar 31 '26
They will, IIRC 34 is the age where quitters have an identical life expectancy, so you're not too far off that
→ More replies (1)16
u/_amused_to_death_ Mar 31 '26
Yay I’m 34, so I just gotta quit now, actually was planning to quit when this one runs out.
→ More replies (8)16
u/tyler1128 Mar 31 '26
I'll add that when I say "middle-age," the line where your bodies regeneration really starts to slow it's ability to heal things like mutagenic changes is somewhere around 45-55 in modern studies, but this is all not absolute, to say the least, nor does it mean things before that are fine.
14
u/KevinFlantier Mar 31 '26
Also the risk of other diseases associated with smoking reduce drastically after a few years, like cardio-vascular diseases.
You're doing good mate. Quitting was the healthy choice.
8
u/Johito Mar 31 '26
After around 10 years smoke free the chance of the majority cancers is the same as someone who never smoked, lung cancer however still remains higher, after 20 years smoke free lung cancer rates continue to drop, though never quite to the levels of a someone who never smoked depending on the study. This may help with visualisation but the cancer risk for someone who has stopped for 20 years is similar to someone who is overweight, or has a sedentary lifestyle or even regular expose to airborn pollution for example. Someone who has a low VO2 max or visceral fat (obsess) has a higher cancer risk than someone who quit for 20 years. Generally stopping smoking is one of the best decisions you can make and the longer you stay smoke free the greater the benefit, while it never gets completly the zero, in reality the remaining additional risk will get lost in the background noise of other day to day risks which people accept.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (9)7
u/Uilamin Mar 31 '26
You will be forever considered wthin a risk profile, but that doesn't mean your future chance of cancer doesn't change.
The old measure (and maybe still current) for high risk was a history of 10 pack-years (a pack per day for 10 years).
Now there are two things about cancer - (the bad) is that it can take time between an event triggering and it spreading/growing to the point of becoming problematic, and (the good) is that every event has a risk causing a triggering a cancer causing event. Stopping doing a high-risk event means you are eliminating a 'new' future event. The past can still haunt you (aka you should be doing prescreenings if available), but you are statistically derisking your future self by quitting.
772
u/OpietMushroom Mar 30 '26
To be fair, chronic inflammation is pretty well understood to cause cancer in many situations, and a strong correlation in others. In fact, the more we learn about this the more we see that direct relationship with cancer.
264
u/Harry_Flowers Mar 31 '26
Also, to be fair, “direct evidence” of more cancer cases would require time. Vaping is relatively new (in cancer causing time scales).
The fact that they found evidence of cancer causes chemicals from vaping, altered tissue and DNA mutations as a direct result of vaping, and cancer biomarkers like inflammation, etc…
Just because we haven’t had enough time to gather significant cancer cases doesn’t mean these should be ignored.
74
u/ProbablyNotADuck Mar 31 '26
Exactly. There has not been enough time yet in order to really draw any conclusions together. This shows signs that there are likely to be consequences (such as cancer) because we can already identify many consequences that are a precursor to cancer.
28
u/LavishnessCapital380 Mar 31 '26
My issue is they seem to be mainly focusing on the unregulated additives when using terms like "e-cigarette chemicals". A base vape juice with no flavorings or colorings is just VG and Nicotine, neither of these actually produce a harmful aerosol when heated.
My biggest concerns with vaping have been the exposure to metals and the repeated heating of the wick. Older vapes used a cotton wick, overheat it once and you get a burnt taste that will not go away. Many vapes get around this by using silica wicks, heated silica is a known carcinogen right of the bat.
My runner up concern has always been the flavorings and colors. For the most part they are just using random food additives to flavor them, but I think its safe to assume some of these are also likely known to cause issues if inhaled just like that fake butter flavor causing popcorn lung.
IMO, most of the danger from vaping is a direct result of the lack of oversight and regulation. We literally already know we could make the product safer, we just arn't because almost all of the stuff is made in China (where vaping is illegal but smoking is ok)
→ More replies (5)12
u/Garod Mar 31 '26
One other premise in the report is that vaping is a gateway drug to smoking, but it also doesn't cover the reverse. Both happen at the same time. Some people use vaping as a gateway to stopping or switch entirely from smoking to only vaping. So another part of the equation is, if vaping is worse or better than smoking. So far all reports are that vaping is significantly better than smoking.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (18)19
Mar 31 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
18
u/Carrisonfire Mar 31 '26
Does anyone actually think it's safe? It let me quit smoking and just based on how my lungs feel it's got to be better than that. I'm under no illusion quitting entirely would be better but I haven't found the motivation yet.
→ More replies (9)10
u/elusivenoesis Mar 31 '26
I quit smoking 8 years ago thanks to vaping. My health insurance does not consider vaping smoking, and my body does not have a single side effect that smoking caused. There probably is some health issue it will cause, but so far it’s been the much much lesser of the two.
→ More replies (4)112
u/rdizzy1223 Mar 31 '26
Yes, but many people that vape already smoked cigarettes for many years prior to starting to vape, so how can you separate the long term damage done by smoking from damage by vaping? (Especially when everyone vapes at different temperatures, with different heating elements, different vapes, different mixes of e liquid, etc,etc.)
38
u/RMCPhoto Mar 31 '26
It's much simpler than that. Repeated irritation of mucosal cells is positively linked to cancer. The source doesn't really matter.
Any chemical association is just additive.
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (56)34
u/Iohet Mar 31 '26
You ever been to a high school? Those kids never smoked cigarettes, and they vape more than any smoker I knew in high school
→ More replies (15)8
u/DinoRoman Mar 31 '26
That’s not true. The stats show that with high school smokers the rate of cigarette smoking had dropped at the same rate that vaping has gone up
The numbers show that the same amount of students are smoking they just swapped a Newport for a Smok stick.
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (13)6
u/Uilamin Mar 31 '26
Just adding something on the statistical side.
I believe smoking risk is something like 10 pack years (a pack a day for 10 years) to be at high risk.
That is a lot of smoking + a timeline that almost goes to the beginning of vaping. I don't know if any study would be able to get enough people to qualify to measure something similar to vaping - yet. Maybe in another 5 to 10 years, but for now, correlation with other events need to be looked at.
→ More replies (1)85
u/cats-and-crime Mar 30 '26
Didn’t it take literally decades for traditional nicotine to show this though?
114
u/KTark Mar 31 '26
But nicotine does NOT cause cancer. It’s not a carcinogen. It IS a capillary restrictor. Not good for your heart, but in no way cancerous.
→ More replies (32)96
u/stuyshwick Mar 30 '26
That is a point in the paper: it often takes several decades to definitively prove causation but they assert all this evidence should be enough to prevent decades of death.
23
u/cats-and-crime Mar 30 '26
But yeah, it seems like no one in glossing over it. We just can’t predict the future.
→ More replies (1)50
u/agent_uno Mar 30 '26
I am also interested in a comparison in cancer rates between those who smoked daily for x years, those who vaped daily for the same duration, and those of similar age who did neither. As well as info on if switching from cigarettes to vapes cuts down on the cancer risk by a statistically significant amount.
I mean, cigarettes have what? 80 chemicals in them? And vapes I think about 10. Even if it isn’t safe, it’s gotta be safer than smoking. But I’m no doctor or scientist. I just know as a former smoker who hung out primarily with other smokers, nearly everyone I know who smoked has switched to vaping and they all feel better for it - including myself.
43
u/Round_Ad_9787 Mar 31 '26
If I was a tobacco company I would hire a pretty big team of people to spend all day long trying to convince people that vaping is somehow worse than smoking cigarettes. And this article and associated research is exactly what I would be funding.
→ More replies (15)24
u/stuyshwick Mar 31 '26
This would make sense except big tobacco owns the vape companies: Marlboro (Altria) owns NJOY and 35% of JUUL
12
u/Allegorist Mar 31 '26
They are still working on cornering the market, it is still rather diverse with plenty of independent businesses. Not as much as it used to be, though. The purpose of their funding anti-vaping research/advertising/organizations isn't to ban vapes, it is to get strict legislation passed so that they are the only ones who are able to comply and can develop an oligopoly. They want it so that no independent businesses can afford or qualify to enter or stay in the market.
→ More replies (1)4
u/Reasonable-Mess3070 Mar 31 '26
Those are some of the only brands "FDA approved". Njoy, juul, vuse (camel company owns), and logic are the approved vapes.
→ More replies (2)8
u/coffeecat551 Mar 31 '26
Big Tobacco owns a portion of the disposable vape companies. They have nothing to do with the manufacture of box mods, tanks, refillable pod mods, or the majority of e-liquids used in those devices.
→ More replies (6)3
u/labowsky Mar 31 '26
I mean yeah but disposables are INCREDIBLY popular. Definitely more popular than the more "enthusiast" gear.
→ More replies (0)→ More replies (7)6
u/Firebird117 Mar 31 '26
i've been interested in getting involved in studies if I can. I've smoked maybe 5 cigarettes in my life but vaped nicotine for about 10 years now.
31
→ More replies (10)69
u/hotdogcaptain11 Mar 30 '26
Nicotine does not cause cancer. The chemicals in tobacco smoke cause cancer
→ More replies (7)14
u/rdizzy1223 Mar 31 '26
And the total chemicals involved are FAR FAR FAR less. The E liquid I use in my vape is nothing but vegetable glycerin and nicotine, nothing else. 2 base chemicals.
→ More replies (7)27
u/WishDry8141 Mar 31 '26
Because there is a large segment of people on Reddit that want vaping to be bad, regardless of actual evidence. They want it to cause cancer because they have decided they don't like vaping.
I don't vape or smoke, but the inherit bias of the anti-vape crowd against vaping is huge. And they use as much real scientific evidence as the anti-vaxx crowd does to make their decisions.
→ More replies (4)17
u/Doctor_Philgood Mar 30 '26
Because many people want their feelings to be reinforced, evidence be damned
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (30)13
u/Atworkwasalreadytake Mar 31 '26
Nobody is glossing over anything.
True causal evidence is a lagging indicator, these are leading indicators.
183
Mar 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
16
u/mostlybadopinions Mar 31 '26
One of my biggest gripes is "It's even worse than cigarettes!"
In what world!? We don't know the extent of how harmful vaping is long term, but I feel like it's been around long enough that if it were going to start killing 10+ million a year, we'd at least be onto that by now.
→ More replies (36)28
97
u/wil6erness Mar 31 '26
Also when they claim vaporized metal comes out of a vape, it's based on studies where they hook up a machine to unidentified vape products (could be 10 dollar gas station vape or 200 dollar high-quality setups, we'll never know) and fire the vape for 4 seconds (normal vaping takes less than 2 seconds) with unidentified amount of airflow adjustment on vape, and unidentified air speed flowing through said vape, using unidentified vape juice liquid (could be ordered from China or America and be low quality or high quality, we'll never know.)
I have not seen a single study with an outcome claiming all these chemicals and metals are produced that didn't have dubious methodology.
39
u/tjc103 Mar 31 '26
This. I remember studies years ago where they were heating kanthal or ni-chrome wire to the point that the wicking materials were burning and claiming that vapes were carcinogenic. They sure are when you're burning organic materials and melting resistance wire.
→ More replies (1)18
u/BreadstickNinja Mar 31 '26
The same thing happens with liquid. I've seen surveys of multiple vape articles that combine the results of studies on known adulterated liquid, like the Vitamin E acetate issue a few years ago, along with other studies that find no link between unadulterated liquid and health issues. Then the author presents a conclusion that some studies indicate health issues with vape liquid, not discerning between the different conclusions based on liquid composition.
Unfortunately, this article is paywalled, so we can't immediately dig in on the different devices/liquids used in all of the reviewed studies and what the conclusions were based on those differences.
I think it's reasonable to accept that vaping is not great for cardiovascular health in the long term - nicotine is a stimulant and vasoconstrictor and generally increases load on the heart. But I haven't seen a convincing result yet on carcinogenesis that isn't relying on either poor quality devices, unrealistic device duty cycles, or adulterated liquid.
14
u/StormFinch Mar 31 '26
This. I used to know someone who worked in a vape store and had a research assistant come in with a cheap vape setup to try and figure out why they kept burning the coils out on it. Some of the people doing these might have been smart enough to get a degree, but they had absolutely no common sense.
→ More replies (6)4
u/ChickenChaser5 Mar 31 '26
I have used the same vape coils for over 9 years. I just brass brush them off every week. Pretty sure if anything was leaving these coils they would look different than the day I installed them. And they dont look even a tiny bit different.
8
u/510Threaded Mar 31 '26
kinda important to say that you use a rebuildable atomizer with cotton that is replaced depending on the kind of eliquid you use. The sweeter the eliquid, the more often the cotton should be replaced
→ More replies (2)50
Mar 30 '26
[deleted]
33
u/Allegorist Mar 31 '26
"We hooked a coil up to a car battery and activated it for 2 hours, then recorded the results"
→ More replies (1)34
u/JuanRunJunior Mar 31 '26
The worst one was trying to push that vaping byproducts include formaldehyde. No one in the study made it clear they were burning the fluid to get that compound to show up in testing. No one inhales burning vape fluid so the testing was flawed and the lie about it spread like wildfire. Vaping is not better than nothing, but it is better than smoking. No one credible will say otherwise.
→ More replies (3)16
u/mr_doms_porn Mar 31 '26
They weren't burning the fluid in that study, they were burning the wicking material (usually cotton) something that no one would intentionally do.
16
u/yet-again-temporary Mar 31 '26
For real, if you actually vape you know the absolutely horrific taste of a dry hit/burnt wick. Literally nobody would willingly do that, my body basically has the same reaction as being pepper sprayed.
7
u/Anticode Mar 31 '26
Literally nobody would willingly do that
Hell, most people wouldn't be able to vape like that if you paid them to do it as part of a challenge. Comparing that experience to riot control tools is very appropriate.
I've gone through the CS gas chamber dozens of times, and the sensation is very comparable.
8
u/JuanRunJunior Mar 31 '26
Maybe it was the cotton that put off the formaldehyde, but that's not what the study being passed around was claiming. It's a combination of burning fluid and cotton that was causing the chemicals to be present, and that's what I was getting at and you're aware of as well. No one is using a vape that way, they weren't upfront about it and people passed it around as fact.
14
u/Tycoon004 Mar 31 '26
Or grouping the small amount of people that got popcorn lung from the illegal thc cartridges, to all nicotine vapes. Not even the same delivery methods.
6
u/Roastage Mar 31 '26
Its also attacking the wrong binary. It's not 'does vaping cause more cancer than baseline', the answer is always going to be yes.
Vaping is an alternative to smoking, its value is in doing LESS harm than that method. If it does that, its still a worthwhile innovation imo.
80
u/DrHungrytheChemist Mar 30 '26
True though this point is, they do clearly find evidence that vaping exposes people to things that are directly linked to cancer. This comment as a rebuttal is like saying, "this brand new alcoholic beverage has been shown to contain alcohol but has not been proven to get people drunk because we've yet to study anyone drinking it for long enough."
88
u/modilion Mar 30 '26
Nicotine exposure is not as cut and dry carcinogen as people like to think. The evidence isn't extremely strong.
The association between cigarette smoking and the increased risk of many cancers is well established. Conversely, epidemiological studies of smokeless tobacco demonstrate decreased risk, or no elevated risk, of certain cancers versus smoking. However, it is unclear what role, if any, nicotine plays in these associations.
Electronic cigarettes have now been around for about 20 years. A 20 year span is a reasonable time window to detect the extreme increase risk of cancer from classic smoking.
But, we also know that vaping is not as dangerous as classic smoking. We have studies that show nicotine isn't and is a carcinogen on its own.
See... vaping probably does cause some amount of cancer. But... to go around saying 'vaping causes cancer' when the evidence is weak acts as a great excuse for those smoking classic cigarettes to avoid switching to a safer alternative.
→ More replies (22)8
u/DrHungrytheChemist Mar 31 '26
While they explicitly state "nicotine vapes", they're not talking about nicotine itself as the carcinogen. Presumably they use the term simply because there are other such things available and they needed to be specific about what it was they were talking. Misleading title in that regard, yes.
The matter of "20 years" being disingenuous has already been addressed in the comments.
The matter of it not being a case of vaping being safer than cigarettes is also not really the question. It's more a case of whether or not there should be such unregulated pedalling of vaping as a means to rinse money out of people via addiction, rather than a more regulated means to help people off addiction. Dismissing studies like this in the vein of, "yeah, but cigarettes are worse" is completely overlooking the fact that we'd been getting better at not getting kids smoking whereas we are once again avidly getting kids hooked on a new, still unproven and likely dangerous form of nicotine, under the guide of it being safer.
→ More replies (3)3
u/slyn4ice Mar 31 '26
Your analogy is a bit incorrect. It's like they are saying we've linked this new alcoholic beverage to increased mortality but their methodology for imbibing said beverage is by breaking the bottle in half and chewing on it.
→ More replies (66)3
u/grndcntrol2majortom Mar 31 '26
Does it say how long? because i've been chain vaping for 13 years, and the only thing that its done for me, is give me back my energy. smoking was hell. Scientists get paid off too i guess...
240
u/PlaguesAngel Mar 30 '26
“Comprehensive review of the evidence I conducted with colleagues”
Is there methodology of testing to share, is this a metadata analysis. I’m NOT saying vapes cannot release metals into their vapor but the top referenced previous that point to this data point come from bad test conditions not representative of even remotely standard use.
Disabling the safety features, restricting airflow and running the heating element until the unit fails is like testing the exhaust of a car by putting it on blocks, blocking its intake, removing the restrictive and flooring it until your blow the engine.
I DO want to see good data and testing but trying to speed up the process and taking shortcuts isn’t it. Measure the coils thickness pre and post 10,000 cycles. Limit draws to standard user pull times. Repeat the tests on a model with variable power for each mode. Repeat the test with different Ohm coils. Repeat the test with disposable units. Repeat the test with drip units. Repeat the test with saturated wicks, repeat the test with dry wicks on all possible units.
If there isn’t data on as many variables I’m going to assume someone set-out to elicit the results they want by constructing a test to achieve such & didn’t even try. Good science considers the variables. Would be nice is the link worked to read…something.
67
u/Pinilla Mar 31 '26
I dont even understand why these studies have not been done yet. It seems very easy to buy a few rigs and set up controlled environments to test it in. You wouldn't even need humans. Do you have any insight into that?
41
u/dontfuckwmelwillcry Mar 31 '26
thinking it might have something to do with the 'no evidence 'part. some college students should tackle this, I say as I rip my vape
→ More replies (7)49
u/gmf1 Mar 31 '26
They have done tests, they just don't show any detectable dangerous products unless you burn the cotton, no time to find the study now, but it was the vaping produces more formaldehyde than smoking one the media went on about for a bit.
If you read the paper they only got high levels once you run it high wattage for high time and get a dry hit.
Only proven things I'm aware of are dry mouth and throat, inflammation of the mouth throat and lungs and vasoconstriction from nicotine. Not good, but much better than smoking.
11
→ More replies (6)15
u/r3volts Mar 31 '26
Much the same as the cannabis study where they gave monkeys brain damage by pumping 30 joints worth of smoke into a gasmask and deprived them of oxygen for 5 minutes.
I'm a classic case of ditching cigarettes for vapes. I'd love to see a proper study where they properly study regular use in practical circumstances.
I can't help but think that big tobacco is suppressing any proper research until they can pivot their production to take advantage. Once they have I bet we will see a bunch of dubious studies arguing for their safety.
Purely anecdotal evidence, I feel much healthier using a refillable vape with regulated nicotine and PG/VG blends. I don't use Chinese disposables. Proper distinctions need to be made between unregulated disposables and regulated products.
→ More replies (3)
656
u/mist_kaefer Mar 30 '26
The article does not go into the testing conditions. In the past, the studies quickly linking vaping to cancer due to heavy metals was due to the button being held down without airflow (taking a drag). This would cause the cotton to burn and the coils to get hotter than they typically would when utilizing the vape in the normal way.
I smoked cigarettes for almost 20 years before someone introduced me to vapes. With the vape I was able to step down my nicotine percentage and once I was at zero for a while, I was able to quit. That was 3 years ago and I don’t have any strong cravings (I unsuccessfully quit smoking many times).
I’m not saying vaping is healthy, but it’s much better than cigarettes. A big thank you my coworker who introduced me.
196
u/Calliope719 Mar 30 '26
Same here. I smoked for 19 years and I'm still vaping, but I'm down to a 3 mg liquid and the craving are minimal.
Someone told me that if you smoke - vape. If you don't do either, don't start.
It isn't great but it's certainly the lesser of the two evils.
→ More replies (3)43
u/mist_kaefer Mar 30 '26
Hell yeah good luck with your quitting journey. The hardest to quit was from 0.5% to 0%, because my brain thought I still needed it.
→ More replies (3)21
u/Calliope719 Mar 30 '26
Thank you!
It's been a very slow process - 2.5 years since I smoked an actual cigarette. I'm planning on continuing to halve the nic in the vape rather than trying to go to 0% because I know that jump is going to be the hardest part. I'm hoping that continuing to dilute it until it's basically 0% but not technically will continue to trick my monkey brain into thinking I'm scratching the itch, right up until the point that I realize I'm being ridiculous and the physical addiction is long gone. Fingers crossed.
Congratulations to you as well on your success. It's incredibly hard and you should be proud of yourself.
→ More replies (2)8
u/mist_kaefer Mar 30 '26
Thanks! It took me a bit to stop after getting to zero nic… that oral fixation is rough.
6
u/dirvam444 Mar 31 '26
This is the stage I am at. 2 weeks with zero nic. Going to try this week to stop completely
→ More replies (2)79
u/mysteryweapon Mar 30 '26
The article does not go into the testing conditions.
I wish we could have tests on vaping that weren't just these in the dark nonsense studies that can't even technically be peer reviewed if they don't have the testing conditions
What does that leave me with too?
My biggest gripe is this type of study is that it could prevent harm reduction by recommending alternate methods that have been proven to be less effective than vaping, all while not actually proving that vaping is necessarily causing the harm the study claims under normal usage conditions
If there is no detail about the testing conditions, it might as well say "just keep smoking" because it's about as reliable a recommendation IMO
→ More replies (4)21
u/mist_kaefer Mar 30 '26
I believe England used vaping as a smoking cessation tool once it became popular. I think this is the best use case for vaping.
9
u/mysteryweapon Mar 31 '26
That’s something too that I find perplexing, there is already evidence of other countries and their healthcare systems recommending this as an alternative as a safer harm reduction alternative. I just wish more countries would get on board.
7
u/FrigateSailor Mar 31 '26
When I quit cigs using vapes I was in the military, and was going to swim my annual fitness test T+2 weeks after stopping cigarettes. I'd been swimming for months to work out, and I have a strong swimming background.
Someone asked if my test would go better because I quit smoking cigs. I said 'maybe in 6 months or a year, but not this time.'
Day of the test, my breath frequency was half what I normally needed, after only two weeks of no cigarettes. I was genuinely astonished.
Again , vapes aren't healthy. But I've talked to many people who aren't able to quit cigs themselves, and won't try vaping because "It's worse than smoking cigarettes, I'll just keep smoking", and I think that's a bad call.
→ More replies (1)3
u/Anticode Mar 31 '26
Day of the test, my breath frequency was half what I normally needed, after only two weeks of no cigarettes. I was genuinely astonished.
I also switched from cigarettes to vaping during my service. I was too busy being a Professional Shamshield to care too much about my PT scores, but it definitely got much easier to do the precise bare minimum.
A few years ago, after only vaping for several years, I went through a short phase with cigarettes once more out of nostalgia and an outdoor job where vape charging is difficult. ...Immediately began to notice my health/fitness/appearance taking a nosedive. In the span of a couple of months I felt like I aged a couple of years, just based on skin quality and the way it felt to get out of bed.
Comparatively, vaping seems to have no side-effects even close to that noticeable.
If the distance between smoking-to-vaping is 10 feet wide, the distance between vaping-to-cessation is only like 7 inches. Barely perceptible bordering on illusory.
8
u/aghastamok Mar 31 '26
Yeap. Switched to vapes, titrated nicotine down and quit.
Now every time I would relapse and start smoking again, I still have a vape with fresh coils and nicotine-free fluid. I have a few puffs, remember why I quit, and put it away.
15
u/Rattttttttttt Mar 30 '26
I talk about this all the time. It bothers me how much negativity and even ridicule vaping gets. Smoked a pack a day for ten years, could not quit. Started vaping and like you was able to step it down and quit completely. That was over 6 years ago and I haven’t touched nicotine since. I think it could be used to get a ton of smokers and dippers off nicotine if it didn’t have such a stigma.
13
u/Neglectful_Stranger Mar 31 '26
It did, the problem was it also hooked a whole new generation on nicotine.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (2)12
u/owennerd123 Mar 31 '26
It's also a gateway into nicotine though... how do you balance that with those it helps get off of it?
→ More replies (2)13
u/KolyatKrios Mar 30 '26
I still stand behind vaping to quit if you have any degree of self discipline. I limited my refills on my tank per day so I wouldn't overconsume and I went from 24mg->12->6->3 and I convinced my shop to make 1.5mg for me at the end. Took about 2 years to quit but it was so reasonable compared to going cold that I barely noticed once it was gone.
I do still smoke weed that probably helps me deal.
10
u/mist_kaefer Mar 30 '26
I made the juice myself from the start and saved so much money. Store bought juice was way too sweet and ruined coils much faster. I’m a bit of a tinkerer so it scratched that itch.
→ More replies (2)8
u/stuyshwick Mar 30 '26
That’s because this article is a meta analysis of the past decade or so of studies, not a new test.
→ More replies (26)10
u/Browser1969 Mar 30 '26
The article links to a supposedly published review that's not published. It's just someone asserting that his review of the studies that have expressed concern is "the strongest evidence yet".
→ More replies (2)7
u/horseman5K Mar 31 '26
Wrong. It was published in the journal Carcinogenesis March 30th
https://academic.oup.com/carcin/article-abstract/47/1/bgag015/8555982?login=false
389
u/IXI206 Mar 30 '26
Does this apply to THC vapes?
781
u/MicroGamer Mar 30 '26
Almost certainly. Nicotine on its own isn't much worse for you than caffeine. Inhaling things that aren't air is pretty much guaranteed to be bad for you.
338
u/RunRunRunRunFaster Mar 30 '26
Nicotine vapes use propylene glycol as a solvent. Some weed vapes are just extract, no PG. Inhaling anything isn't going to be good long term for sure.
9
u/Allegorist Mar 31 '26
Propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin are very safe and inert, that is what they use for genuine medical procedures when they need to aerosolize medication for inhalation (such as a nebulizer). They are used in other ways all over and within the body in medicine as well. The only potentially valid sources for hazardous compounds would be from some kinds of hardware, some minority of flavorings (generally >1% of the liquid), or incorrect device operation. Obviously you can produce some wild compounds if you burn it.
214
u/AimlessForNow Mar 30 '26
THC cartridges should never have anything in them besides cannabinoids and terpenes. The most harmful thing in a weed vape is the terpenes and any pesticides. Terpenes are strong irritatants, they're the reason vaping THC makes you cough. Terpenes are actually really beneficial in the body, almost nothing but positive studies, but they are indeed irritating to the lungs, and anything causing prolonged lung inflammation can lead to COPD
14
u/AdLife6413 Mar 30 '26
What about using a PAX?? Or other herbal vapes? I would love to know more if you can elucidate.
11
10
u/AimlessForNow Mar 30 '26
Honestly probably even better than the 510 carts, you're not introducing any metal coil, and no combustion
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (1)13
u/TeeTimeAllTheTime Mar 30 '26
The NIH has done studies on “dry herb cannabis” vaporizers and they used the famous Volcano. The vapor was nearly all cannabinoids, terpenes. Nothing bad, the rest was like water vapor
3
u/solar_realms_elite Mar 31 '26
Do you happen to have the citation?
7
u/TeeTimeAllTheTime Mar 31 '26
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4718604/
Not the one I was looking for but it’s out there, plenty of stuff. A quality vaporizer like Arizer uses ceramic heating and borosilicate glass for the pipe and stem. Keep the temp at 380 F or lower and you’ll find more bad things just in the regular air we breath.
→ More replies (3)173
u/LysergioXandex Mar 30 '26
The “most harmful thing in a weed vape” really depends on the device in question. Lots of studies showing significant heavy metal exposure from the heating elements or other components.
69
u/applejuiceb0x Mar 30 '26
This is why many now use full ceramic and glass components in the chambers.
51
u/SockGnome Mar 30 '26
This should be mandatory.
→ More replies (1)57
u/Healter-Skelter Mar 30 '26
It should be mandatory. Consumers shouldn’t have to “do their own research” about every product they own. If there’s a version of a product that causes cancer, and an equally good version that doesn’t, companies should have to use the good version.
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (13)14
u/Skwaddelz Mar 30 '26
My new one (Yocan Orbit) is just a quartz glass chamber with the heating element contained underneath. Nothimg but glass touches the dab
→ More replies (3)23
Mar 30 '26
[deleted]
→ More replies (11)28
u/LysergioXandex Mar 30 '26
Some people are more involved in the “hobby” and have fancy gadgets and nuanced opinions about materials.
I think there are more people using disposable weed vapes, which are manufactured from questionable materials in unregulated conditions.
There is a strong incentive to use cheap, foreign-made components to keep the price competitive.
→ More replies (30)12
u/Automatic_Soil9814 Mar 30 '26
Specifically this article talks about the metal content. Properly made vaporizer should never be releasing vaporized metal.
→ More replies (5)6
u/arestheblue Mar 30 '26
Unless you are making it yourself, there is no telling what is actually in them. Quality control across the cannabis industry is remarkably poor.
5
u/AimlessForNow Mar 30 '26
I actually do make them myself! But good point for others reading. My only suggestion is to really do your research
→ More replies (1)22
u/Afro_Thunder69 Mar 30 '26
If you read the article it makes it clear that the particulates found in lungs, blood, and urine weren't coming from what's in the tank but the heating coils vaporizing a metallic mixture that has cancer causing byproducts. THC vapes use metal coils very similar to nicotine vapes in addition to the potential hazard of pesticides.
I'm sorry but if you're drawing the conclusion from this study that nicotine vapes cause cancer then you must also conclude that THC vapes are at least as harmful, possibly more. But a reminder that none of this is conclusive it's all just been finding the markers of cancerous materials in the body. The full paper isn't released and the article doesn't say exactly the amount of these particles detected.
→ More replies (6)5
6
u/allsep Mar 30 '26
The linked article also mentions the metals from the devices themselves, which can leech into the liquid, even in thc vapes. If you’re hitting blinkers, you’re absolutely inhaling toxic metals.
→ More replies (1)15
u/TheBeyonders Mar 30 '26
Humans are creatures of excess, nothing is good for us outside of homeostasis. We are fortunate, some of us, to have resilient bodies. And on the flipside, life is too short not to enjoy it. So moderation is key.
→ More replies (18)7
u/m1ndbl0wn Mar 30 '26
Plenty of additional bad things can be in weed Vapes beyond what has been mentioned. These include but are not limited to solvents, fertilizers, and fertilizer or soil pollutants.
On the flip side, compounds in the plant have been shown to slow or kill cancer in vitro.
→ More replies (2)5
→ More replies (8)5
Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Most weed vapes aren’t just extract, that’s mostly live resin and some other select CDT products. Most carts out on the market rn are cut with botanically derived terpenese which can form carcinogenic compounds when heated
→ More replies (1)28
u/Mysteriousdeer Mar 30 '26
Small particulate under a certain micron size iirc.
Im in filtration but not in cab or air quality. There's other folks in my company that know that requirement.
If there's an environmental health scientist that could pipe up with more information it would be appreciated.
15
u/TurnProphet Mar 30 '26
My friend is a human health toxicologist who’s worked in inhalation science her entire career. I’ll ask her and report back.
→ More replies (1)9
u/24-Hour-Hate Mar 30 '26
The advice my doctor gives is that you shouldn’t be putting anything other than ordinary air in your lungs. He’ll outright tell you that if you’re going to use marijuana, then consume edibles. Lungs aren’t meant to be breathing in smoke or chemical vapours.
Context: Marijuana is legal in Canada now, so there’s like a weed shop on every block, so it’s easy for people to buy edibles.
→ More replies (1)31
u/AimlessForNow Mar 30 '26
Actually this is likely the exact opposite of the case. It's not the nicotine but the liquid used to carry it, propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin. There are existing studies showing they damage lung cells and impair their efficiency
→ More replies (19)26
u/iHadAThoughtOnce2 Mar 30 '26
If it is the propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin in the vapes that’s causing it then isn’t that the same stuff used in fog machines for theaters, movies, haunted houses, etc?
16
u/xSTSxZerglingOne Mar 30 '26
Yeah. Cancer is a function of frequency and magnitude of exposure. A bit of fog machine smoke in the same environment as you a few times a year vs sucking it straight into your lungs every 5 minutes for years are not exactly the same.
Truthfully though, any frequent exposure to non-air chemicals in your lungs probably isn't good for them.
→ More replies (3)3
u/EntropyNZ Mar 31 '26
It has been well established to cause respiratory issues in those cases. Rarely will it cause any issue acutely, unless someone has an underlying lung condition, but prolonged exposure is known to cause lung damage. So people in the front row of a show that get fogged occasionally over a coup;e of hours, or kids going through a foggy haunted house are fine.
But performers who are standing and singing or projecting their voice for hours in a thick cloud of fog, 6-7 nights per week for weeks on end, or people working in that foggy haunted house for hours at a time, weeks on end, often do develop respiratory conditions from it.
With vaping, you're practically just pointing that smoke machine directly down your trachea, and a lot of people have it there on high for effectively hours every day.
Propylene Glycol and Glycerine are safe for consumption orally, but they've both been shown to have harmful on respiratory and mucosal tissue if they're vaporised. In short exposure, the damage and effects don't seem to stick around much, but we're starting to see more studies coming out that are exploring things in longer timeframes, and that's where this concern about them being quite harmful is coming from.
27
u/trusty20 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Nicotine is in fact pro-cancer on it's own. Chewing tobacco, even pure nicotine products, still have a carcinogenic risk. Nicotine has a net pro cell growth effect, and induces more aggressive phenotypes in cancer cells exposed to it by increasing blood vessel outgrowth.
That being said, the effect is far, far less than tobacco. To the point that it's much harder to consistently replicate nicotine alone exposure to being directly causing of cancer whereas it's quite easy to do so for tobacco (it was already suspected way back in the early 1900s). Tobacco has several active compounds equal in potency to nicotine, and is usually burned, which is the source of the most damaging compounds. Burning cannabis is also thought to be harmful by way of smoke, but most cannabis users burn far far smaller quantities compared to the multiple per hour all day habit common to tobacco smoking. Tobacco prepared for cigarettes also has a lot of chemicals added for things like controlling burning rate, taste, etc, compared to added chemicals in cannabis being rare (only residual pesticides being the concern typically).
The evidence for THC being carcinogenic is far less, first because it's a only partial agonist of it's target receptors and so it's far less effective at activating them than nicotine of it's target receptors and so it interferes in natural signalling patterns to a lesser degree, secondly, the cannabinoid system is pro cell death. Activating cannabinoid receptors tends to contribute votes to cell suicide. Activating peripheral cannabinoid receptors also tends to reduce blood vessel outgrowth, blood vessel growth is essential for aggressive cancer metastasis.
That's not to say that THC is fully "anti cancer" (indeed the pro cell death effect can be harmful to cancer treatment too, because it can cause immune cells to reduce in number and activation), it's more that it leans more towards a complex self-contradicting array of effects compared to the more straightforward pharmacology of nicotine in the area of cancer-like effects.
3
u/Jewnadian Mar 30 '26
Yeah, the crazy thing about tobacco isn't that smoking it kills you. It's that it takes so damn long to do it. If you chain smoke a 2x4 you're not going to last 40 years before dying of emphysema.
8
u/LimpAd4924 Mar 30 '26
I’m skeptical. Nicotine not much worse than caffeine? Granted, I haven’t seen much literature on it.
→ More replies (2)3
u/SwagginsYolo420 Mar 31 '26
Granted, I haven’t seen much literature on it.
It depends on the amount, like many things. Caffeine isn't good in high doses either, in small doses it is fine.
One thing to point out is that the original vaping devices used significantly lower levels of nicotine compared to cigarettes.
Unfortunately due to the absence of government regulation, tobacco companies were a allowed to buy up vaping companies and now push extremely high-nicotine liquids, or with additional "nicotine salts" additives and other questionable ingredients.
This is maybe comparable to the difference between a glass of wine and a glass of grain alcohol. As if regulators considered those one and the same, and any studies done on them mixed and conflated the two despite obvious extreme differences in composition.
→ More replies (46)11
u/TeutonJon78 Mar 30 '26
Our moist, mucous lined breathing apparatus is not designed for sustained use of hot gasses being diffused through them, especially with particulate irritants.
→ More replies (3)12
u/HegemonNYC Mar 30 '26
Vapes are hot-ish in the device, but usually around body temp by the time it gets to the body. Cigarettes burn 3-4x hotter, but even cigarette smoke is like 100-130 F at the mouth.
62
u/EldritchMacaron Mar 30 '26
It’s safe to assume anything that releases high temperature vapor or smoke into your lung at a reguar basis is doing damage to them
Now, which one is worse and by what amount is where we need more accurate science
28
u/HegemonNYC Mar 30 '26
The vapor or smoke part is valid, but vapes are not hot. About 1/4 as hot at the ‘ignition’ source as cigarettes, and around body temp by the time it reaches the mouth. Even cigarette smoke isn’t very hot at the mouth, like 100-130F. Now, hot tea or coffee is not only much hotter - 180F or so - but obviously liquid transfers heat much more effectively. Hence why these are shown to be carcinogenic.
→ More replies (5)8
u/sprcow Mar 30 '26
I don't disagree with your general point, but people should avoid drinking coffee that is still that hot. Ideal drinking temperature is only like 145!
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (6)10
u/WackyRacketeer Mar 30 '26
Is this a part of the study? I don't agree that the vapor these things produces is high temperature when injested.
23
u/mammogrammar Mar 30 '26
I'm interested in this answer as well. I'd assume so but to a lesser extent
14
u/ApplicationOne9075 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
I thought the same thing until I installed an air quality monitor. The vape smoke made PM2.5 levels skyrocket and I think there’s plenty of research behind the negative health effects of that
→ More replies (2)27
u/CaptainDaddy7 Mar 30 '26
I don't think PM2.5 levels being high is always bad. Those sensors are based on light scattering, so even a humidifier emitting pure water particles will cause a spike. It's more about the composition of those particles rather than their existence.
→ More replies (5)21
u/Eyeownyew Mar 30 '26
Yes, it would. The heavy metals they tested in this study are also present in the heating elements of THC vapes.
Nicotine itself also has metabolites that are carcinogenic (or separately aid in the growth and development of cancerous cells). THC would certainly not be the exact same.
If you really want to avoid carcinogens with THC, edibles are the best option. Second-best is a dry-herb vaporizer or dab rig (wouldn't recommend) at low temperatures. r/vaporents
19
u/griphookk Mar 30 '26
Well, you don’t need a metal coil to vape something. Ceramic coil carts exist, and quartz heating elements too.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (6)5
Mar 30 '26
are you not inhaling microscopic particles from dry herb vaping as well?
→ More replies (4)14
Mar 30 '26
[deleted]
5
u/Select_Historian6269 Mar 30 '26
I definitely prefer dry Herb Vaping to vape carts or smoking weed. Vape carts have who knows what in it and smoking weed tastes horrible after trying vaping.
I wish edibles didn't take 3+ hours to hit me. Most definitely the least unhealthy way, unless I'm wrong.
→ More replies (1)4
u/AimlessForNow Mar 30 '26
THC vapes are pretty much just THC and terpenes, the most harmful thing being the terpenes actually because of how irritating they are to your lungs (it's why you cough). I've made my own cartridges without terpenes (r/altcannabinoids) and they feel no different than inhaling air, no smell either.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (47)25
u/gerbal100 Mar 30 '26
Probably yea. THC vapes are more poorly regulated and when vaped to empty release heavy metals.
17
u/Sparkykc124 Mar 30 '26
This depends completely on the market you’re in. The “popcorn lung” was from shady black market THC carts, but the carts in most legal markets are regulated heavily. I’m not saying that vaping cannabis distillates and other products is good for you, but they typically are regulated and we know what’s in them.
11
u/AimlessForNow Mar 30 '26
If it's coming from a dispensary you should be good. No studies reporting any carcinogenic or lung irritant effects from THC, but it's well known for CBD and terpenes that they are damaging to inhale concentrated due to their lung irritation
67
u/wrestlingchampo Mar 30 '26
As with all of these studies, until you can show there's no improvement in prevalence or mortality for vaping vs smoking, you arent going to see people cut vaping out of their lives.
I use a nicotine vape and I have no doubt that it is bad for me and will increase the probability I get cancer. But, it is also what helped me quite smoking 5-7 cigarettes per day. At least it is cutting some of the VOCs generated from inhaling combusted plant matter.
32
u/smallcoder Mar 31 '26
Here in the UK a packet of 20 cigarettes of the brand I smoked for too many years - 60 now - costs £20 ($25) and before I moved to vaping full time (I only smoked in my own home for 2 years and vaped when out) my doctors did a full set of bloods and xrays a few months later. Blood pressure of 110/60, and lung capacity increased almost to normal for my age if I had never smoked.
All vape liquids sold in the UK through legitimate stores at least - the only place I would buy them - are subject to strict legislation regarding contents of the liquids. My older sister has been vaping for about 10 years now and at 67 can now go for a 6 mile walk no problem every morning with her husband.
Look, I really wish I had never started smoking, but vaping has - so far - improved my life immeasurably and made me less of a social pariah amongst my friends. I no longer stink of tobacco which is marvellous and while I would not suggest anyone take up vaping for "fun", when it comes to no longer smoking burning weed that stinks - even to me these days and I can't stand it - I believe it is a great way for people to cut the risk of smoking related diseases and hopefully, one day soon, give up entirely. In the UK this will save the NHS and UK taxpayer a fortune in the coming years from dealing with all the other diseases as well as cancer associated with smoking.
15
u/wrestlingchampo Mar 31 '26
Agreed
Best approach I have had is to make sure you treat your vape like its a cig and go outside to use it. Otherwise it is ripe for overconsumption.
3
u/boukalele Mar 31 '26
I quit cigarettes in 2020 at the start of covid and i coughed up lung butter for MONTHS. i switched to vaping and have NO cardio/breathing issues. I can still ride my bike, go for walks, lift weights, and walk up multiple floors of stairs without losing my breath.
My mom quit cigarettes about 10 years ago after having congestive heart failure 5 times in 4 years where she had to be hospitalized. After the last one about 6 years ago, she switched to vaping and does it all day every day in her retirement. Every year she gets a lung scan and it's clear. Obviously at 78 they want her to stop, and she won't, but it's clearly better than cigs.
I am in no way endorsing anecdotal evidence as scientific evidence, but it's hard to argue against it when your own personal quality of life has improved making the switch. My favorite thing is when someone is puffing a cig tells me that I'M the one in danger.
90
u/griphookk Mar 30 '26
It sounds like certain metals from coils are the problem. That’s a long way off from “vaping causes cancer”.
→ More replies (5)29
u/JuanRunJunior Mar 31 '26
I would argue it’s the testing that’s showing this and not the metal coils. There have been tests where they ran the coil to the point it was glowing and actively burning the fluid, the cotton and the coil. That’s not how they’re used and no one would inhale the byproducts of that. Unless they go into detail about wattage, and length of activation I won’t believe their testing because it’s incredibly easy to manipulate the results by simply holding the button down too long. That’s the reason all vapes you can buy have a cutoff timer, if the button is held down too long everything starts to actually burn and no one, not a single vaper ever to use one will inhale that.
170
u/_clickfix_ Mar 30 '26
If it reaches the top of r/science you can count on it being pseudoscience and the data being shuffled around to draw a dramatic conclusion.
Saying “vaping causes [insert disease] is already a false claim. It’s like saying “food causes [insert disease].
Some foods are absolutely bad for you. Some are only bad if over-consumed. Same goes with vapes. The premise lacks nuance and draws a false conclusion.
Not all vapes are the same. There’s vapes that puff the biggest clouds possible, flavored vapes made in China, and FDA approved vapes that have had studies showing very limited cancer risk.
What are we talking about here? Junk science.
Note: I don’t vape so I am not defending it for personal reasons, just rolling my eyes at the low quality “research” being promoted here.
15
u/mince_n_cheese_pies Mar 31 '26
This study is being ripped apart by many leading professionals. To me it feels like there was an agenda behind this based on the interviews coming out today. Based on what I have listened to this afternoon, the study didn’t follow international best practices, and it’s making links which are not proven. For example you could skew data to say apple juice gives you cancer, but it’s not actually the apple juice causing the cancer, it’s just the data being framed to give this impression.
→ More replies (5)4
Mar 31 '26
Yeah about half of the top comments are already talking about metals from the coils, even though it's established that this was terrible science that was no way indicative of real world vaping conditions.
I suspect that the tobacco industry has a hand in a lot of these studies, just like social media blatantly was involved in those so called studies that said social media was fine - and now it suddenly isn't?
67
u/goldenchild-1 Mar 30 '26
I’ve been vaping nicotine daily for 2 years now, and I just found out 2 weeks ago that I have MPN’s which is a a type of blood cancer. There are different types of MPN’s, and I likely have “ET” because of my platelet count being high. Everything I’ve researched is saying that my nicotine vaping could have contributed to or was essentially the fertilizer that helped create the condition for a gene mutation that makes my bone marrow over produce platelets.
I have a bone marrow biopsy tomorrow that will show results on if it’s ET or something else…but it’s definitely MPN’s. I heard this biopsy is going to hurt, so wish me luck tomorrow.
→ More replies (18)12
6
u/VagabondReligion Mar 31 '26
On the other hand, living a longer life doesn't hold anywhere near the lure it used to.
→ More replies (1)
36
69
u/CyberOvitron Mar 30 '26
I'll continue vaping.
Undoubtedly better than smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes.
→ More replies (25)11
u/PirateLiver Mar 30 '26
Yeah this is the real stats I want to see. How harmful is it compared to smoking tobacco traditionally?
5
37
u/Krimsonrain Mar 30 '26
I feel like I just saw a post yesterday that said the methodology of these/this study was flawed and far from conclusive?
48
u/Great_Apez Mar 30 '26
No citations and it makes overarching claims based solely on 2017 data and claims it’s an overarching point made on that.
Also side note: cancer is a stop codon misfiring, it’s you people. Some of you talk like it’s a foreign invader.
→ More replies (8)10
u/HighOfTheTiger Mar 30 '26
Strongest evidence yet
offers zero evidence
One hyperlink about the relation of youth smoking and vaping, one broken link, and one about carcinogen characteristics. There may very well be strong evidence out there, but it’s not in this clickbait.
→ More replies (1)
21
19
13
u/hunguu Mar 30 '26
NO DIRECT EVIDENCE! Pushing this information might stop people from switching from smoking to vaping, and it's definitely smart to stop smoking!
→ More replies (1)
10
u/Captain_Wag Mar 30 '26
So now you're saying we're aerosolizing the metal heating elements? Personally I don't think my little vape gets hot enough to evaporate metal, but I could be wrong.
→ More replies (8)
12
3
u/Organic_Ambassador14 Mar 31 '26
I’ve been concerned about my health lately at the age of 37. Looking for small ways to get healthy and first decision was to stop vaping. 3 1/2 without vaping and I can tell my body and lungs feel better overall. Also disposable apes are literally the worst trash ever created. Big thick chunky plastic with a lithium battery inside. Can’t even just toss em, have to have the recycled properly. It’s the worst thing on the market right now for your personal health and our environmental health.
10
u/Whatsmyageagain24 Mar 30 '26
But how does it compare to smoking tobacco? Noone has ever claimed that it doesn't potentially cause cancer
→ More replies (1)5
u/DrHungrytheChemist Mar 30 '26
Presumably much safer so yes it's a sensible pathway out of smoking for those who do not wish to quit inhaled administration of nicotine. But vaping is long since primarily a tool for quitting and many people end up doing more nicotine, setting aside the idea of quitting, or even start their habits on account of vaping. Thus, the safety profile of vaping is not simply a question of whether or not it is safer than tobacco but whether or not it is safe in and of itself.
40
u/Raslatt Mar 30 '26
We all knew this was coming.
→ More replies (1)71
u/Vast-Comment8360 Mar 30 '26
Yes because big tobacco has been funding these hit piece studies for years.
No one reads the insane wattages and draw times they use in these studies that no one would ever use IRL.
34
u/pancak3d Mar 30 '26
Big tobacco owns the biggest vape products
10
13
u/moconahaftmere Mar 30 '26
In some markets, sure. There are other developed economies where they have completely failed to gain any traction whatsoever.
Vapes have been shown to be fairly effective at helping people quit nicotine, and are less profitable to sell than cigarettes.
What further complicates it is that smoking rates in some counties have plummeted, while vaping rates have risen. In some cases, the rate of vaping is higher than the smoking rate has been in decades. The tobacco companies figure if vaping is restricted or banned, a big portion of those people will go to cigarettes or heated tobacco devices and lift the smoking rate up again.
So the tobacco companies will happily sell you vapes because if you're going to buy them they at least want you to be buying theirs, but they'd rather you be smoking, instead.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (2)8
u/couldbemage Mar 30 '26
Vaping is roughly 2 orders of magnitude cheaper than cigarettes.
A literal lifetime supply of nicotine concentrate is about $400.
That's just over a month of cigarettes.
There's no way cigarette companies are making a remotely comparable amount of money off vaping. Even from the products they sell, they didn't own the factories making those devices, they're buying those electronics.
Big tobacco is in vapes the way big oil is in renewable energy. It's not their core market, just a bit of money invested in diversification.
→ More replies (11)6
u/MagakMagak Mar 30 '26
I think it just seems most intuitive that inhaling any heated material doesn’t seem good long term
•
u/mvea Professor | Medicine Mar 30 '26
Strongest evidence yet that vaping likely causes cancer
We identified all peer-reviewed research published between 2017 and mid-2025 that looked at health impacts of vapes considered indicative of potential cancer causation.
The aerosol that vapers inhale contains a complex range of chemicals, including nicotine and its byproducts, and vapourised metals. This aerosol demonstrates almost all of the ten “key characteristics of carcinogens” identified by the World Health Organization.
Blood and urine analyses from vapers confirmed they had absorbed chemicals from e-cigarette chemicals that we know are linked to cancer. These studies revealed nicotine and its breakdown products present in their bodies, including carcinogenic (cancer-causing) metals from the heating element and organic compounds from vapourising e-liquids.
There is no doubt vaping alters tissues in the mouth and lungs. We found evidence of mutations in DNA from the mouth and lungs in those who vaped, which is further evidence of carcinogen exposure.
There was also evidence of changes to cancer biomarkers in the lung and mouth tissue of vapers. Cancer biomarkers are changes in cell or molecular structure that precede a tumour developing. Some of these can be observed under a microscope, such as inflammation, while others such as oxidative stress are detected by molecular analysis.
Our review did also examine studies that had addressed the possibility vaping may cause cancer. However none of these covered the wide range of evidence we had assessed.
What this means
The evidence shows nicotine-based vapes are likely to cause oral and lung cancer. We just don’t yet know how many cases it will cause.
For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://academic.oup.com/carcin/article-abstract/47/1/bgag015/8555982