Vaping and your oral health: what do we know?

With Stoptober approaching, it’s a good time to talk about vaping — especially because there is still a lot of confusion about how it compares with smoking.

For people who smoke, switching completely to a regulated nicotine vape can be an effective way to quit. The NHS continues to recommend vaping as one of the tools that can help smokers stop.

What does vaping do to the mouth?

Vaping does appear to have some drawbacks for oral health, although these seem to be much milder than the effects of smoking.

One of the clearest problems is dry mouth. Saliva plays an important protective role in the mouth: it helps wash away food debris, neutralise acids, lubricate the tissues and provide minerals that help protect and remineralise tooth enamel.

When saliva levels are reduced, some of that natural protection is lost. This can make the mouth more prone to irritation and may increase the risk of tooth decay.

Vaping can also irritate the lining of the mouth and throat, causing symptoms such as dryness, soreness, burning, coughing or a sore throat.

Research also suggests that vaping is associated with changes in the oral bacteria, with possible effects on plaque, tooth decay and gum health.

We are still learning what these changes mean over the long term, so it would be misleading to say that vaping directly causes gum disease or decay in the same way that smoking is known to cause harm.

The same applies to oral cancer. We do not currently have good long-term human evidence showing that vaping causes oral cancer, but because vaping is relatively new, the long-term effects are not yet fully understood.

So what should you do?

If you don’t smoke, don’t start vaping.

If you do smoke, switching completely to vaping is far less harmful than continuing to smoke and can help you quit. You only get the full benefit if you stop cigarettes completely.

If vaping has helped you become smoke-free, the healthiest long-term goal is eventually to stop vaping too — but not if doing so risks returning to cigarettes.

Stoptober 2026

This October, Stoptober is encouraging smokers across England to make a 28-day quit attempt.

NHS support, stop-smoking services, nicotine replacement and vaping can all form part of a quit plan.