Vaping has emerged in the last few years as a safer alternative to smoking. But health experts emphasize that "safer" doesn't mean "safe" — especially for people who don't already smoke.

"Existing evidence suggests that vaping exposes the user to fewer toxic chemical compounds than are in cigarette smoke," says Dr. Alejandra Ellison-Barnes, an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins Tobacco Treatment and Cancer Screening Clinic. "However, vaping is not without risk."

Here's what medical professionals want you to know about the differences between smoking and vaping.

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Is vaping better than smoking?

Vaping poses less of a health risk compared to smoking — if a person is struggling with quitting cigarettes cold turkey, switching to a nicotine vaping product would "drastically reduce your exposure to these toxicants until you are ready to quit using nicotine altogether," says Tracy Smith, an associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina Hollings Cancer Center.

But that still doesn't mean it's safe or good for you, experts say.

Cigarette smokers are about 25 times more likely to develop lung cancer, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Smoking e-cigarettes has also been linked to chronic lung disease and asthma, according to a 2020 study by Johns Hopkins Medicine. Experts also point out that because vaping is a newer concept, there is still much they haven't discovered.

"We don't yet know all of the effects associated with long-term use," Ellison-Barnes says. "Additionally, because vaping products are not well-regulated, we don't always know what ingredients are in them that could cause health problems."

In addition to lung health, research has shown that nicotine, which is found in both regular and e-cigarettes, raises blood pressure, heart rate and with them, the likelihood of having a heart attack. Cigarette smokers are two to four times as likely to develop coronary heart disease and stroke, according to the CDC.

"There are some short-term data showing that people who switch completely from smoking cigarettes to vaping have improved lung function, but we would expect the biggest improvements from quitting altogether," Smith says.

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What does vaping do to your lungs?

Though experts don't yet know everything about vaping side effects, they have identified several lung diseases as being the result of vaping. Per Johns Hopkins Medicine, the following conditions are linked to vape use:

• Bronchiolitis obliterans, known colloquially as "popcorn lung": First discovered in popcorn factory workers who were exposed to the food additive diacetyl, which is frequently added to flavored e-cigarettes and can cause permanent airway scarring.
• Lipoid pneumonia: An inflammatory lung condition that causes cough, shortness of breath and coughing up blood, as a result of inhaling oily substances from e-liquid.
• Primary spontaneous pneumothorax, also known as collapsed lung: If a person has air blisters on their lungs, smoking and vaping can increase their risk of bursting the blisters, which leads to lung collapse.

While cancer is a common diagnosis among cigarette smokers, health professionals say e-cigarettes haven't been around long enough to say if the same is true for vaping. But it's "definitely a concern, given that vaping introduces a host of chemicals into the lungs," Johns Hopkins Medicine notes.