The Health Impacts of Smoking and Vaping

When a teen first tries smoking, it is not uncommon for him to feel sick to his stomach. Some teens even throw up the first few times. After all, the body is smart and knows when it is being poisoned. Over time, the body gets used to the poison and the smoker doesn’t feel sick anymore, but inside the body, the damage is still being done.

When someone tries smoking for the first time, it’s common to feel nauseous or even throw up. That’s because the body recognizes the toxic chemicals in cigarettes and reacts to them. Over time, the body adjusts, and the sick feeling goes away, but the damage is still being done.

One thing that smokers may notice early on is the way that smoking impacts their lungs. Not only does smoking cause shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing, and increased phlegm, but it also reduces lung function. As a result, when a smoker wants to do something physically active like participate in gym class, hike with friends, or go swimming, they will struggle to keep up because their lungs do not work as well as other people’s.

For people with asthma, smoking can be particularly dangerous. Even if a person has not had an asthma attack for many years, taking up smoking can cause the asthma to return and make symptoms worse over time.

How Smoking and Vaping Affect Your Body

Once you get used to smoking or vaping, you may feel like it’s not having much of an impact on your body. The truth is that every cigarette or vape you use is causing harm—not only to your lungs but also to your brain, heart, mouth, throat, and skin.

Both smoking and vaping expose your body to harmful chemicals that can have serious long-term effects. A study by New York University reported that mice that were exposed to e-cigarette vapor with nicotine developed DNA damage in their lungs and bladder. The vapor also inhibited DNA repair in their lung tissues. Researchers said the amount of smoke the mice were exposed to was similar to someone who had vaped for about three to six years. Mice that were exposed to e-cigarette smoke without nicotine did not develop cancer. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is the first to definitively link vaping nicotine to cancer. Moon-Shong Tang, the study’s lead researcher, said: “It’s foreseeable that if you smoke e-cigarettes, all kinds of disease comes out ... Long term, some cancer will come out, probably. E-cigarettes are bad news.”

A 2026 study published in the medical journal Carcinogenesis found that vaping nicotine was very likely to cause oral and lung cancers. The study incorporated a wide range of research, including clinical monitoring, animal studies, laboratory investigations of the chemicals produced by e-cigarettes, and examination of human biomarkers that might indicate things like DNA damage or inflammation. One author of the study remarked, “The evidence was remarkably consistent across fields” that vaping leads to cancer.

Brain

Smoking has harmful effects on your brain. It can lead to memory loss, learning problems, and faster brain aging. It also damages brain cells, which can increase the risk of dementia and other thinking and memory issues. Smoking also raises the changes of having a stroke, which can cause permanent brain damage or even death.

The good news is that quitting smoking can stop further damage to your brain. While it may not fully undo past harm, quitting as soon as possible can help protect your brain and reduce the risk of future problems.

Heart

Smoking can cause both immediate and long-term harm to the cardiovascular system, even in young people. When someone smokes or vapes, their heart rate and blood pressure rise quickly. This puts extra strain on the heart. The chemicals in cigarette smoke and e-cigarette vapor, including nicotine, can damage blood vessels and reduce their flexibility. This can lead to atherosclerosis, a condition that causes arteries to narrow and harden, making it harder for blood to flow and increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Smoking and vaping also reduce the amount of oxygen that reaches body tissues. This forces your heart to work harder. Over time, these effects raise your risk of serious cardiovascular diseases such as coronary heart disease, arrhythmia (abnormal heart rhythm), and heart failure.

Encouragingly, quitting smoking can help reverse some of this damage and improve your heart health. In fact, blood pressure and heart rate begin to drop almost immediately after quitting.

Lungs

Aside from the fact that smoking can cause frequent coughing, increase your risk of colds, trigger wheezing, and worsen asthma flare-ups, it is extremely damaging to your lungs. Smoking causes many fatal diseases like pneumonia, emphysema, and lung cancer.

When you smoke or vape, you inhale a mix of harmful chemicals. These substances irritate lung tissue, which can lead to constant coughing, an increased amount of mucus, and trouble breathing. Over time, smoking and vaping can cause permanent lung damage by breaking down air sacs (alveoli), which transfer oxygen from the air into the bloodstream and remove carbon dioxide. This damage makes breathing more difficult and increases the risk of conditions like emphysema (a lung disease).

Inhaling these chemicals also weakens your lungs’ natural ability to clean themselves. This makes it easier to get infections and can lead to serious diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer.

Mouth and Throat

Smoking stains your teeth because the tar and nicotine in tobacco cling to the enamel. Over time, this causes yellow or brown discoloration that can be hard to remove. The damage isn’t merely cosmetic, though—the heat and chemicals in smoke and vapor irritate the soft tissues in your mouth and throat. This can cause chronic bad breath, a weakened sense of taste, and a higher risk of gum disease.

Even more concerning, smoking and vaping can increase the risk of oral and throat cancer. The harmful chemicals in tobacco and e-cigarettes can damage cells, leading to precancerous growths or even cancer.

Skin

Smoking and vaping can make your skin age more quickly as well as look gray and dull. The chemicals in tobacco smoke and e-cigarette vapor shrink blood vessels, cutting off the oxygen and nutrients your skin needs to stay fresh. It can also slow down the healing of cuts, acne, and other skin problems. Nicotine, found in both cigarettes and many vapes, weakens collagen, the protein that keeps your skin firm and elastic. This can cause sagging and deep wrinkles, especially around your mouth and eyes. Even the repeated motion of inhaling, like pursing your lips, can lead to fine lines over time. These effects aren’t just limited to your face—they can also cause premature aging on your hands and other areas of exposed skin.

Your Entire Body

There is not a single area of your body that is not impacted by smoking. It can weaken your bones, making them more fragile and prone to fractures. It also increases the risk of serious diseases like stomach ulcers, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, and cervical cancer. Additionally, smoking can lower sperm count and make it harder to have children, affecting fertility in both men and women.

Is Vaping the Lesser of Two Evils?

Many people choose to vape instead of smoking because they believe it is a safer option. But vaping comes with many serious health risks. In the United States, the FDA now regulates tobacco products, including vape pens and smokeless tobacco. In recent years, stricter regulations have been placed on flavored e-cigarettes, which were found to contribute to the rise in teen vaping.

Studies continue to show that most e-cigarettes and vape liquids contain harmful ingredients. Although e-cigarettes don’t produce traditional tobacco smoke, they may still contain nicotine, which is highly addictive and harmful to brain development. Research has also linked vaping to an increased risk of using regular cigarettes. Moreover, some e-cigarettes contain dangerous chemicals like formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, which are known to cause cancer, as well as toxic metal particles from the heating coils.

More recently, concerns about vaping’s impact on heart health have grown. In 2022, the American Heart Association (AHA) reported that vaping is linked to cardiovascular disease. Studies show that it can cause impaired blood vessel functioning, arterial stiffening, and high blood pressure and heart rate, all of which put stress on the heart and can lead to heart disease. The effects of vaping on the heart compound over time, so if you start smoking as a teen you increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Research from Ohio State University College of Medicine also suggests that teen boys who vape may have an even higher risk of developing heart disease.

Vaping and “Popcorn Lung”?

Diacetyl is a buttery-flavored chemical found in some foods like popcorn, caramel, potato chips, and dairy products. While it is recognized as generally safe to eat, inhaling it can be dangerous. In the early 2000s, workers in popcorn factories who inhaled diacetyl regularly developed a serious lung disease called bronchiolitis obliterans, also known as popcorn lung.

When diacetyl is inhaled, it can scar the tiny air sacs in the lungs. This, in turn, results in the thickening and narrowing of airways. People with popcorn lung often cough, wheeze, and experience shortness of breath. These symptoms are similar to the symptoms people with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) experience.

Despite the known risks of diacetyl, the chemical has been found in many e-cigarette liquids, particularly in flavored vapes. This means people who vape may be inhaling a substance that can permanently damage their lungs. Researchers at the Harvard T. H. Chan Schools of Public Health found that diacetyl was present in 39 out of 51 e-cigarette brands. The study also found that many e-cigarettes contained the chemicals pentanedione and acetoin, which cause respiratory problems. Roughly 92 percent of all e-cigarettes tested had one of the three chemicals in its blends.

Exploding Batteries

Nicotine and other chemicals in vaping cartridges aren’t the only dangers of vaping. The batteries used in vape devices can also be a serious risk. Unlike batteries used in flashlights or remote controls, vape batteries are designed to heat liquids to high temperatures. In rase cases, these batteries can overheat and explode, causing severe injuries.

One of the most well-known incidents occurred in 2019 when 17-year-old Austin Adams suffered severe injuries after a vape pen exploded in his mouth. He lost several teeth, shattered his jaw, and had severe burns on his lips. The blast also “vaporized” some of his gum tissue. More recently, in 2024, a woman faced a life-threatening situation when her rechargeable e-cigarette exploded in her lap, setting her car on fire and causing severe burns on her legs. These are just two examples of increasing accidents caused by exploding vape devices. Dr. Anne Wagner of the University of Colorado Hospital Burn Center explained what happens when vape batteries explode: “It’s literally an explosion, a super-hot explosion. We’re seeing deep third-degree burns and almost all of them require skin grafts and these grafts leave a significant scar.”