Vaping may pose more risks to health than traditional cigarettes

Written by Matt Roper and Conaill Corner on March 4, 2025. Posted in Current News

Vaping may pose more risks to health than traditional cigarettes, potentially leading to dementia, heart disease, and organ failure for long-term users, according to the author of a bombshell study

Despite this, Inhaling nicotine vapour from e-cigarettes is seen as “substantially less harmful than smoking”, according to the NHS.

Yet, Dr Maxime Boidin, leader of the first-ever controlled study on vaping’s long-term effects at Manchester Metropolitan University – which is set to conclude in March – believes the health threat to those who vape could be even more severe.

Dr Boidin remarks:

“Smokers tend to go outside and smoke, and once a cigarette is finished they have to light up another to keep going.

But with vapes, you just keep going and it’s much harder to know how many puffs you’ve had. It’s much easier to vape continuously because you can do it in places where smoking might be less acceptable.”

Shaken by his own research outcomes, he reveals: “What we have found is the dangers for someone who keeps vaping are no different from smokers.”, reports the Mirror.

Initially a believer in the reduced harm of vaping over cigarettes, Dr Boidin shared his change in perspective:

“At the beginning (of the study) I also believed that vaping was more beneficial than smoking.

You see a lot more people vaping these days because they don’t think it’s too bad. Many will be horrified to know the truth.”

A study conducted at the University of Liverpool‘s Institute of Sport has revealed alarming results about the effects of smoking and vaping on the body. The participants, aged between 18 to 45 with similar fitness levels, underwent regular stress tests to measure their blood vessels’ elasticity and brain blood flow speed.

The participants were asked to consume only water and refrain from vaping, smoking, and exercising for 12 hours before testing. Dr Boidin, senior lecturer in cardiac rehabilitation, explained that the Flow-Mediated Dilation (FMD) test, in which a cuff is placed on the participant’s arm and inflated to restrict the blood flow, before being released to measure how much the artery expands as more blood is passed through it, produced the starkest results.

Alarmingly, smokers and vapers showed a flat reading, indicating damaged artery walls that can no longer dilate – a likely precursor to serious cardiovascular issues. Further tests confirmed that blood flow in smokers and vapers is similarly impaired, increasing their risk of cognitive dysfunction, including dementia.

Dr Boidin attributes this damage to inflammation caused by nicotine and the metals and chemicals found in vapes, such as propylene glycol and vegetable glycerine. Chemical flavourings like carbonyl compounds are known to cause inflammation and oxidative stress, leading to inner wall artery damage and cell death.

He says:

“When you put this mixture of metals and chemicals into your body you can’t expect nothing to happen.”

Vaping use in the UK has exploded since the first electronic cigarettes arrived on our shores in 2005. Britain now sees around 5.1 million people aged 16 or over – roughly one in ten – engaging in vaping, with figures from last year’s Office for National Statistics highlighting this surge.

Notably, vaping rates were highest among those aged 16 to 24, at 15.8 percent.

One million people in England now vape, despite never having been regular smokers, a seven-fold increase in three years, according to a University College London study published in The Lancet Public Health Journal.

And, despite recent vaping scares, like the death this year of Hollyoaks star Paul Danan, aged 46, who months earlier revealed he’d had to be revived after suffering respiratory failure caused by excessive vaping, Public Health England is still advising that “vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking”.

Other shocking cases have emerged of collapsed lungs, fainting or vomiting ominous green liquid, linked to heavy vaping. Dr Boidin, whose study results will be published soon, says he has evidence that levels of fitness, even in young vapers, can be impaired.

One of the study volunteers Adam Petrulevic, a 25-year-old masters student studying strength and conditioning at the university, says he vapes “without stopping,” adding:

“I never really smoked, but I started vaping two years ago. I always thought it was much less harmful than smoking.

I take a puff every few minutes and only stop when I go to sleep. A 500-puff vape used to last me a few days but now it’s not even a day.

Now I’m on 3,500-puff vapes which should be more than a week, but I finish them in three days.”

A volunteer known only as Marine, 33, started vaping three years ago to wean herself off smoking and uses a heated tobacco device. She said:

“I didn’t smoke in the house but now I vape all day long. I decided to take part in the study because I wanted to know what it was doing to me.

I’ve noticed that I’m out of breath more, I feel that it’s not so good for my health.”

Both volunteers were alarmed by Dr Boidin’s negative findings. Adam says:

“It’s definitely an incentive for me to stop.”

Despite many being swayed by the commonly held belief that vaping is far less harmful than smoking, a sentiment echoed by Public Health England’s statement that “vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking”, the agency acknowledges that “evidence is mostly limited to short and medium term effects and studies assessing longer term vaping are necessary.”

Marine adds:

“I’m going to quit. I never expected vapes to be as bad as cigarettes.”

The Government has announced that disposable vapes – colourfully packaged devices that come in candy-like flavours and have been blamed for an increase in teenage users – will be banned from June.

But Dr Boidin says all vapes should only be available on prescription in Britain, to avoid a “health emergency.” He says:

“The only benefit of vaping is to help people quit smoking, but if they keep vaping the result is going to be the same. I think doctors should be able to prescribe vapes for a certain time, so they could be used as a transition tool, but only for a short time.

We now know the long-term effects of vaping, and if we don’t act now we will see a health emergency in the next ten, 15 years.”

Rachael Maskell, Labour MP for York Central who has called for tighter restrictions on vapes, says:

“This study adds to the body of evidence that vaping can cause significant harm to a person. The government should take stricter measures in ensuring that vapes are only accessible to people who currently smoke as a smoking cessation intervention.”

Dr Marina Murphy, scientific spokesperson for the UK Vaping Industry Association, dismisses the study’s findings, saying:

“Millions of people have been using vaping products safely for many years. All the available data suggests that vapes are unlikely to exceed five percent of the health risks associated with cigarettes.”

See more here liverpoolecho.co.uk

Header image: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

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