Health effects of vaping vs smoking  

If you are a smoker

  • quitting smoking is the best thing you can do to improve your health. There is support available to help you quit.
  • completely replacing cigarette smoking with vaping will reduce your exposure to harmful chemicals.
  • there are short-term general health improvements if you completely switch from smoking cigarettes to vaping products.

Vaping is less harmful than smoking. Many of the toxic and cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco and the tobacco smoke form when tobacco is burned.

Vaping products do not:

  • produce smoke 
  • contain tobacco
  • involve burning

Except for nicotine, vaping products typically contain:

  • a fraction of the 7,000 chemicals found in tobacco smoke
  • lower levels of several of the harmful chemicals found in smoke

Vaping to help quit smoking

Quitting smoking can be difficult, but it is possible. Vaping products and e-cigarettes deliver nicotine in a less harmful way than smoking cigarettes. These products may reduce health risks for smokers who can't or don't want to quit using nicotine:

  • on their own
  • by using counselling services
  • by using medication or approved nicotine replacement therapies like:
    • gums
    • patches
    • lozenges

While evidence is still emerging, some evidence suggests that using e-cigarettes is linked to improved rates of success.

While quitting cigarettes, you may go through a time when you use both cigarettes and vaping products. Switching from tobacco cigarettes to vaping will reduce your exposure to many toxic and cancer causing chemicals.

 

Source:

Health Canada

Public Health England