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Nicotine Vapes Triple Smokers' Odds Of Quitting Tobacco
- May 21, 2026
- Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
Nicotine vapes can triple smokers’ odds of successfully giving up traditional cigarettes, while also exposing them to fewer harmful chemicals, a new study argues.
Smokers who started using a nicotine e-cigarette were over three times more likely to quit smoking within six weeks, compared to smokers who used an identical e-cigarette containing no nicotine, according to results published May 19 in JAMA Network Open.
They also had lower levels of toxic chemicals produced by burning tobacco, researchers found.
"For people who smoke and haven't been able to quit using approved medications, this research suggests that switching to a nicotine e-cigarette is associated with real reductions in harmful toxicant exposures and does support smoking cessation,” said lead researcher Jessica Yingst, an associate professor of public health sciences at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
"That's a meaningful finding for public health,” Yingst added in a news release.
For the new study, researchers explored the potential benefits that smokers might gain from switching to pod-based salt-nicotine e-cigarettes, among the most popular vapes on the market.
Nicotine is addictive, but it isn’t the primary cause of smoking-related cancers and heart disease, researchers said in background notes.
Instead, ignited tobacco creates thousands of chemicals that smokers inhale, including at least 70 toxins known to cause cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.
Researchers recruited 104 people who smoked more than four cigarettes a day and were interested in switching to vaping.
The participants were asked to quit smoking, and were then randomly assigned to use either a 5% nicotine e-cigarette or an identical device that delivered no nicotine at all.
After six weeks, 69 people remained in the study, almost equally split between the two different types of vapes — a drop-out rate typical for a smoking cessation study, researchers said.
At that point, nearly 37% of the nicotine vapers had stopped smoking entirely, compared to about 12% of those with nicotine-free vapes, the study found.
Urine and breath samples showed that nicotine e-cigarette users also had lower levels of NNAL, a marker for a potent lung carcinogen that only comes from the tobacco leaf.
This shows that fewer people using nicotine vapes were sneaking smokes on the side, they said. Those users also experienced less withdrawal and fewer cravings.
“The way nicotine is delivered matters,” Yingst said. “The nicotine e-cigarette provides a similar level of nicotine as a cigarette, satisfying cravings and making the switch easier, but their overall toxic chemical exposure dropped substantially.”
The no-nicotine group likely had a harder time quitting smoking because they weren’t getting any nicotine in their vape, she noted.
More information
The American Cancer Society has more on tobacco smoke.
SOURCE: Penn State, news release, May 19, 2026
