Can Vaping Cause Cancer? What Does It Do to Your Lungs?

While some look to vaping as a potentially less harmful alternative to smoking cigarettes, it is unclear whether it may increase your risk of cancer. Although there is no tobacco in vapes, the chemicals in them are of concern for lung health and cancer risk.

In vaping, a liquid is heated until it becomes an aerosol of tiny particles. But this is not just a watery mist, and potential problems can arise from the chemicals in the vapor. Just how safe e-cigarettes or other vaping products are in the long term remains unknown.

Vaping and Cancer: Is There a Link?

With vaping, the aerosol particles are inhaled into the lungs. Whether this can ultimately cause cancer is something that is still being investigated.

The American Cancer Society warns that while the amount of harmful chemicals in e-cigarettes is a lot lower than in traditional ones, the vapor does have some potentially cancer-causing chemicals.

Vapes contain many of the same chemicals that cigarettes do. Cancer-causing substances in vapes include the following:

• Acrolein
• Arsenic
• Benzene
• Formaldehyde
• Nickel
• Toluene

Other toxic vape substances include components you may recognize, like chlorine and mercury. Substances in vapes known to damage internal organs include benzaldehyde, cadmium, crotonaldehyde, and dimethylnitrosamine.

It will be some time before it's known conclusively whether these substances are doing the damage many suspect is possible.

A Word From Verywell

Quitting smoking, including vaping, is the best decision for your health.

— SANJA JELIC, MD, MEDICAL EXPERT BOARD

What the Latest Research Says

Some turn to vaping as an alternative to smoking. While research shows it is less harmful than tobacco, that doesn't make it safe.

A report on over 800 studies conducted in 2018 by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine found that there are potentially toxic substances in e-cigarettes and that these can be given off while vaping.

Among other things, there's a substance known as acrolein that e-cigarettes produce. Acrolein is used as a weed killer. When it gets into the lungs, it can cause chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and possibly asthma. It can potentially cause lung cancer.

But it's too soon to say if this is true since cancer can take decades to develop, and vaping is relatively new.

How Likely Are You to Develop Cancer From Vaping?

More studies and long-term data are needed to assess the cancer risks of vaping. It remains unclear whether vaping alone can result in cancer However, there is evidence that vaping increases the risk of lung cancer in people who also smoke tobacco.

A study reported at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting in 2024 found that those who vaped in addition to smoking tobacco had a 3 times greater risk of developing lung cancer than people who only smoked. As almost all of the subjects who vaped also smoked, the study couldn't make a conclusion about vaping alone.

Does Vaping Increase Your Risk for a Certain Type of Cancer?

Vaping is relatively new, and it has not yet been shown to cause cancer in humans—something that can take decades.

In one study, mice were exposed to e-cigarettes for 54 weeks, which translates into around three to six years of human vaping. Many developed lung adenocarcinoma and bladder urothelial hyperplasia, which can lead to cancer.

Whether the same will hold for humans is unknown, but researchers believe it is reasonable to think it could.

Does It Matter If the Juice Has Nicotine in It?

While smoking substances with nicotine can be addictive, current evidence for its carcinogenic effects is inconclusive. After exposing rats to vaporized nicotine for two years, scientists found that the rats remained cancer-free.

Are There Certain Ingredients to Avoid?

All vapes are not the same. You are not breathing in pure water vapor. Certain ingredients may pose a greater potential hazard than others.

Nicotine

Most vapes contain nicotine. This substance is highly addictive and also affects your brain and your ability to concentrate and control how you act. This is especially of concern for teens and young adults.

Nicotine can also lead to mood swings. At first, the nicotine in your system spurs the release of dopamine, a chemical messenger between nerve cells, making you feel good and want more. But eventually, as this leaves your system, you may become angry, anxious, and agitated.

Nicotine also brings with it the potential for poisoning. If even small amounts of liquid nicotine are swallowed or absorbed by the skin, this can potentially be fatal.

Base Liquids

The base for vaping is not pure water and should not be considered such. Usually, it has propylene glycol, which can be added to food but is also used to make artificial smoke and is part of products like antifreeze and paint solvents. Glycerol (glycerin) may also be included. It is a sugar alcohol also used in many products.

Flavors

Vapes come in vanilla, almond, fruit, and more flavors. When these flavoring agents mix with the vaping juice, they may create chemical by-products called acetals. Such by-products may be more irritating than the flavoring components they come from.

Mint (menthol) has been known to cause e-cigarettes to make more vapor particles and cause poorer lung function for those selecting this flavor.

Research indicates that flavors that contain a sweetener known as diacetyl can lead to a serious lung condition known as bronchiolitis obliterans, also known as popcorn lung. This is not a cancerous condition, but it causes irreversible lung damage.

Does Vaping Affect the Lungs the Same Way as Cigarette Smoking?

You may wonder if vaping is better than smoking. The fact is that vaping and cigarette smoking work differently. With cigarette smoking, you are burning solid vegetation, which allows the destructive chemicals to go right to the lung tissue. But exposes you to heated liquid particles instead.

While so far, vaping appears less harmful than smoking cigarettes, really knowing what the cumulative effects will be will take time. With cigarette smoke, there are higher concentrations of harmful substances in lung tissue. But it remains unknown whether even small amounts of these substances can lead to disease.

Even small amounts of DNA damage can build up and cause changes in cells that lead to lung cancer. While some of these early changes have been seen in the laboratory, only time will tell whether this causes disease in the population.

What About Popcorn Lung? 

When diacetyl is used as a sweetener in vape liquids, it can lead to lung damage known as popcorn lung (bronchiolitis obliterans). The condition got its name from workers in a microwave popcorn factory who continually inhaled this substance, which was used to create a buttery flavor on the product.

While diacetyl has been removed from microwave popcorn products and is no longer a threat to workers, it continues appearing in vapes.

Popcorn lung causes the air sacs to scar and the airways to thicken and narrow. The effects are not reversible. Symptoms of this serious lung condition include shortness of breath, coughing, and wheezing.

Other Potential Health Problems From Vaping

Vaping has a variety of health risks and can lead to problems such as the following:

• Lung damage from tiny particles that get into the airways and cause inflammation and scarring
• Shortness of breath from lung inflammation caused by toxic chemicals contained in vapes
• Burns on the body from exploding vapes
• Nicotine poisoning with symptoms like coughing, headache, nausea and vomiting, increased heart rate, and potentially seizures and fainting

How to Quit Vaping

Those who vape and who wish to quit can do so, and the following tips can help:

• Get ready by learning the benefits of quitting, circling a date on the calendar, and getting rid of all vaping paraphernalia.
• Reach out to others for help.
• Avoid trigger situations that remind you of vaping.
• Take up stress-relieving activities that can help tamp down on vape cravings, like meditation or walking.

Summary

While vaping has not yet been firmly linked to cancer, it is not in the clear either. Using e-cigarettes can cause you to inhale toxic substances that could potentially lead to cancer. If you smoke and also vape, you may be more likely to develop cancer than if you only smoke.

You also have to consider vaping ingredients from nicotine, which is highly addictive, to various flavors that can create toxic byproducts.