Doctor compares smoking, vaping and nicotine pouches to see what is worse for health with clear winner
A doctor has said smoking, vaping and shoving nicotine pouches into your gums should all ideally be avoided, but they each come with different levels of harm.
The market for each of these products is huge, so there's evidently a lot of demand for all of them, which isn't helped by the fact they all contain highly addictive nicotine which makes people want to keep coming back for more.
However, the health hazards of each product were different and one is clearly worse than the others.
Dr Rayyan Zafar explained to Metro that while all three contained nicotine and were best avoided there was one clear winner when it came to being most harmful, which would mean someone addicted to them would come out the clear loser health-wise.
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Unsurprisingly, the doctor said that the most harmful of the three was cigarettes 'by a very large margin', and it's to do with the way you consume it.
If you have a cigarette habit presumably you're not eating them, you're smoking them, and smoking is very bad for you as burning tobacco and all the various chemicals they put in cigarettes produces lots of carcinogens.
That's going to absolutely mess you up on the inside as smoking is linked to all manner of cancers and other health conditions which end up with the smoker finally being the one lit up in a crematorium.
The NHS says smoking increases the risk of hearing and vision problems, dementia, joint pain, Crohn's disease, pancreatitis, gallstones, liver problems and high blood pressure.
As the doctor put it there was 'no safe level of cigarette smoking' and even lighting up just a few times could lead to 'disproportionate cardiovascular harm'.
That's not to say vaping or nicotine pouches were a healthy habit either.
The risks of vaping
Cigarette smoking may stand head and shoulders above the other two as the most harmful habit but vaping can cause a plethora of its own health issues as many people have discovered to their detriment.
Studies on people who vape have found it reduced their red blood functionality, meaning oxygen wasn't getting around their body like it should.
Meanwhile, a 2024 study noted that many teenagers who vaped experienced poor concentration, anxiety, mood disorders and sleep disturbance.
A number of vapers have been hospitalised in a seriously unwell condition after vaping such a significant amount they did themselves major damage.
According to NHS data, between 2020 and 2023, 233 hospital admissions cited vaping-related disorders’ as the primary diagnosis. In total, there were 941 cases where vaping was either a secondary or primary cause.
The risks of nicotine pouches
As for nicotine pouches, Dr Zafar said these 'may be the least harmful' of the three but stressed they were still bad for you.
Information on just how harmful they can be is thin on the ground since they're relatively new and more studies need to be conducted, but researchers have found gum irritations, mouth ulcers and white lesions where the pouches have been placed among the harmful consequences.
Swallowing one of the pouches also risks nicotine poisoning, so definitely don't do that.
The doctor also didn't like how nicotine products were being marketed in ways he fears 'encourages users to start low'.
He also says that 'snus' - pouches that contain tobacco - is probably worse than vaping, and definitely worse than tobacco-free pouches.
Ultimately, his verdict was that if you're switching from cigarettes to another nicotine product that's probably going to be 'a substantial reduction in harm', but the healthiest thing is not to use any of them at all.
Joe Harker