Does vaping shorten your life?
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Nobody knows yet, because vapes haven’t been around long enough for anyone to measure their effect on lifespan. Switching completely from cigarettes to a vape is very likely better than smoking. Not vaping at all is better than both.
What we’d do
If you smoke, a vape is a fair way to quit, and in trials it helped more people stop than patches or gum. Switch all the way, since the benefit comes from replacing cigarettes completely, then work on stopping the vape too. If you don’t smoke, don’t start vaping.
Why the answers you hear clash
Some people hear that vapes are close to harmless. Others hear they’re as bad as cigarettes. Neither claim has the evidence behind it yet. Smoking took decades to show its full toll, because the diseases it causes take decades to develop. Vapes have only been common for a fraction of that time. A 2018 report from the US National Academies said “there has been little time for a scientific body of evidence to develop.”
How a vape differs from a cigarette
A cigarette burns tobacco, and most of the harm comes from the smoke that burning makes. A vape heats a liquid into an aerosol without burning anything, so it doesn’t expose you to the chemicals made by combustion. That’s why the National Academies said vapes likely carry less risk than cigarettes. They still deliver nicotine, which is addictive, and the aerosol can carry other potentially toxic substances. The CDC says there are no safe tobacco products, vapes included.
The simple version
Swapping cigarettes for a vape is like moving from a burning building into a smoky room. You’re far better off, and you’d still want to get outside.
What the trials show
A Cochrane review, updated in 2026, pooled 80 randomized trials with 29,861 people trying to quit smoking. Nicotine vapes helped more people quit than nicotine patches or gum (a risk ratio of 1.61, rated high certainty), which works out to about 4 extra quitters for every 100 people who try. The reviewers found no sign of serious short-term harm and said longer, larger trials are still needed.
The CDC’s position is similar. Vapes “may have the potential to benefit adults who smoke” if they’re “used as a complete substitute” for smoked tobacco, and no vape has been approved by the FDA as a quitting aid.
A warning about what’s in the device
In 2019 a wave of serious lung injuries swept the US, and by February 2020 the CDC had counted 2,807 people hospitalized or killed by it. The CDC traced it to vitamin E acetate, an additive found in THC vapes, mostly bought from informal sources. The trials above tested regulated nicotine vapes, and the Cochrane reviewers noted that illegal products or ones with other substances may carry different risks.
Why quitting smoking is the real prize
Smokers in the US lose more than 10 years of life on average, and quitting before 40 avoids about 90% of that extra risk. Because vapes don’t burn anything, they’re expected to cost far less than that, though nobody can put a number on it yet. How many years does smoking take off your life? has the numbers by the age you quit.
5 sources
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Public Health Consequences of E-Cigarettes, 2018nationalacademies.org
- Lindson N and others, Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2026pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, E-Cigarettes (Vapes)cdc.gov
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Outbreak of Lung Injury Associated with the Use of E-Cigarette, or Vaping, Productsarchive.cdc.gov
- Jha P and others, 21st-century hazards of smoking and benefits of cessation in the United States, New England Journal of Medicine, 2013pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
