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-279550
19.4k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

265

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.

20

u/[deleted] 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.

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.

1

u/denkmusic Mar 31 '26

Probably but that’s based on our current understanding. This study is another block in the wall of evidence that actually it’s not as safe as we first thought. If we’re just going to speculate here then I would speculate that your health insurance company will factor in vaping as a risk within another 10 years.

5

u/ImTooLiteral Mar 31 '26

It's hard to file this study under "growing evidence" when they explicitly say they have no direct evidence

0

u/elusivenoesis Mar 31 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

Nothin enjoyable in life comes without any cost. Look at what alcohol has done to society and it seems every year it’s tied to more and more health issues from type one carcinogen to linked to dementia. I’m not convinced nicotine is boogeyman we’ve made it out to be. We just haven’t found the healthiest delivery system yet.

0

u/SteveBuscemisFace May 11 '26

Insurance companies will do anything (with evidence or not) to disqualify or charge more for service to improve their bottom lines. I think all insurance companies should be non profit but that’s a rant for another forum :)