The Health Risks Associated with Vaping

Vaping is a popular alternative to traditional cigarette smoking. However, vaping is not without its own health risks and concerns. Let’s look at what these are, so you can make a more informed choice.
What is Vaping?
When you vape, you inhale vapor created by heating up a liquid, commonly called vape juice or e-liquid. This vape juice typically contains nicotine and other chemicals. It is turned into an aerosol that the user inhales. Vaping devices, such as vape pens, mods, and e-cigarettes, heat the vape juice to create this inhalable vapor. Vape devices come in different flavors.
While vaping doesn't involve combustion like cigarette smoking, the vapor still exposes the user to chemicals that can impact health. The long-term effects of vaping aren't fully known, but here are some potential health risks:
Harmful Chemicals
Besides nicotine, vape juice can contain varying mixtures of chemicals such as formaldehyde, heavy metals, volatile organic compounds, and cancer-causing agents. Heating these substances can generate new chemical compounds with unknown effects. The flavors and other additives used in vape liquids may also have adverse health consequences when inhaled.
Lung Damage
Studies show that vaping can harm lung function and lead to respiratory conditions like coughing, wheezing, and asthma exacerbations. The heating process can generate tiny particles that lodge deep in lung tissue, causing inflammation and damage. One vaping-related condition called EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury) has even led to hospitalization and death in extreme cases.
Increased Heart Disease Risk
Chemicals from vaping enter the bloodstream and can increase blood pressure and heart rate, which raises the odds of cardiovascular disease and heart attack over time. Vaping also appears to stiffen arteries. One study found that daily e-cigarette use nearly doubles the risk of heart attack. More research is still needed on vaping’s long-term cardiovascular effects.
Oral Health Effects
The flavors used in vape juice can also erode tooth enamel over time.
Switch to Safer Nicotine Pouches
Nicotine pouches are a less harmful way to get a nicotine fix. Nicotine pouches are small bags of nicotine that users place under their upper lip to absorb the nicotine. Unlike vaping, nicotine pouches don't require inhaling vapor into the lungs. Avoiding inhalation reduces exposure to harmful chemicals that could damage lung tissue. Nicotine pouches also don't contain the wide range of additives and flavors used in vape juices.
Limiting additional chemicals decreases the risk of adverse health effects. Nicotine pouches deliver nicotine through the mouth’s mucous membranes instead of the lungs, so nicotine gets absorbed more slowly. This helps prevent a rapid nicotine spike and makes nicotine pouches less addictive and easier to quit.
Nicotine pouches are available from online suppliers, and here you will find good alternatives if you are ready to throw your vape pen away. They even come in different flavors, such as mint or grape!
While more research is still needed, the existing evidence points to a number of potential health risks associated with vaping. Avoiding vaping remains the safest choice, especially for youth, pregnant women, and non-smokers.