Nicotine vaping in England: 2022 evidence update main findings

in the short and medium term, vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking...

Published 29 September 2022 by UK Government (original article found here)

1. The review

This evidence review is the eighth in a series of independent reports on vaping originally commissioned by Public Health England and now by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities in the Department of Health and Social Care.

This report was led by academics at King’s College London with a group of international collaborators and is the most comprehensive to date. Its main focus is a systematic review of the evidence on the health risks of nicotine vaping.

2. Health risks

The report primarily looks at data on human exposure to vaping, complemented with findings from animal and cell studies. It provides the most robust evidence on health risks of vaping to date. It also assesses the relative risks of vaping compared with smoking, as well as the absolute risks of vaping compared with not vaping or smoking.

2.1 Overall conclusions

Based on the evidence that the team reviewed, the conclusions were that:

• in the short and medium term, vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking
• vaping is not risk-free, particularly for people who have never smoked
• evidence is mostly limited to short and medium term effects and studies assessing longer term vaping (for more than 12 months) are necessary
• more standardised and consistent methodologies in future studies would improve interpretation of the evidence

2.2 Biomarkers of toxicant exposure

Biomarkers of toxicant exposure are measurements of potentially harmful substance levels in the body. The evidence reviewed suggests there is:

• significantly lower exposure to harmful substances from vaping compared with smoking, as shown by biomarkers associated with the risk of cancer, respiratory and cardiovascular conditions
• similar or higher exposure to harmful substances from vaping compared with not using nicotine products
• no significant increase of toxicant biomarkers after short-term secondhand exposure to vaping among people who do not smoke or vape

If you want read more on this study, click here! 

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