Evidence is mounting that vaping comes with its own health risksDedMityay/Shutterstock.
Smokers who give up cigarettes but still vape have more than a 50 per cent higher chance of developing lung cancer than those who stop altogether, according to a study of more than 4.5 million people. But the research also emphasises that using e-cigarettes to help you quit is safer than continuing to smoke.
“The study adds to the rapidly growing body of evidence that e-cigarettes are absolutely not as low-risk as initially claimed,” says Becky Freeman at the University of Sydney, Australia, who wasn’t involved in the work. “[It’s] important that people who are trying to quit smoking try other safer [but] effective methods first, and only use e-cigarettes after exhausting other methods if they are unable to quit.”
Just over 40 per cent of smokers in the UK who quit the habit in 2024 used e-cigarettes to help the process, and 20 per cent of ex-smokers were vaping a year or more after ditching the habit. While some argue e-cigarettes are a pathway to successfully giving up smoking, they have been linked to airway irritation, reduced lung function and, in animal studies, lung cancer.
To better understand their effects on people, Yeon Wook Kim at Seoul National University in South Korea and his colleagues followed more than 4.5 million adult smokers, who participated in the Korean National Health Screening Programme from 2018 to 2023.
