Warning as one vape flavour increases risk of diseases and 'affects your DNA'

Warning as one vape flavour increases risk of diseases and 'affects your DNA' Study found that a certain type of flavour can put smokers at greater risk of cancer, heart, immune and respiratory conditions. A warning has been issued to people choosing certain vape flavours. It comes as a recent study found they were linked to a far higher share of changes in gene activity than sweet, mint, or menthol options. According to the NHS Better Health Guide, vaping poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking because it does not produce tar, tobacco, or carbon monoxide. The advice for adult smokers who use vapes to quit tobacco smoking is to stick to legal, regulated products and avoid anything with unclear ingredients, suspiciously high nicotine claims or non-compliant packaging. The new study, published in Frontiers in Oncology, found that regular vapers who smoke fruity flavours, such as mango and watermelon, showed altered activity in 3,124 genes across the genome (DNA) compared with people who did not smoke or vape. That matters because changes in gene activity can be early biological signals linked to disease pathways, including cancer, heart, immune and respiratory conditions. The researchers did not, however, say that the findings prove that fruity vapes cause those diseases. The research also shows that vape flavours don't directly change the 'DNA sequence', but they do have a big impact on 'gene expression', which is how genes are 'activated or deactivated'. Changing gene expression means changing how much protein a cell makes from a specific gene. It alters cell behaviour without changing the underlying DNA code. Think of your DNA as a giant cookbook and your genes as the individual recipes. The permanent text printed in the book is your DNA - changing the DNA is a mutation. Choosing which recipe to cook, how often to make it, or copying it down on a notepad is essentially gene expression. Vaping or environmental toxins do not erase or rewrite the recipes. Instead, they force the cell to make too much of a 'bad recipe' or stop making a 'good recipe'. "The implication is that each flavour has unique attributes that produce different biological effects," Ahmad Besaratinia, PhD, professor of research population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and senior author of the study, said. "This is something regulators should carefully consider when evaluating the health risks or potential benefits of each flavoured e-cigarette product." The research team found that vaping dose and duration explained part of the picture, but product features such as flavour and device type explained a major share of the variation. Fruit flavours were linked to changes in 970 of the affected genes, equal to 31 per cent. That compares with 92 genes for sweet flavours (2.9 per cent) and 27 genes for mint or menthol (0.9 per cent). The biggest figure was seen among people using multiple flavours, which was linked to 2,009 affected genes, or 64.3 per cent. Higher-generation devices, including mod-style products, were also associated with more gene expression changes than earlier-generation devices. The authors said the findings support looking at flavourings and device design when assessing the biological effects of vaping products, rather than focusing on how often someone vapes or how long they have used e-cigarettes. A separate 2026 systematic review in Frontiers in Public Health also warned that fruity, menthol or mint, and sweet flavours have been linked in existing research to increased nicotine preference in animal models, inflammation, cellular damage, cardiovascular changes and, in human studies, respiratory symptoms, reduced lung function and DNA damage in oral cells. However, much of the evidence is still early, mixed or based on animal and laboratory models. The NHS position remains that vaping exposes users to fewer toxins and at lower levels than smoking. But it is unlikely to be entirely harmless, and the long-term effects are not yet fully known. Vaping has often been used by smokers as a less harmful alternative to cigarettes, and the NHS says nicotine vaping is one of the most effective tools for quitting smoking. But health bodies also stress that vaping is not risk-free, and that children, under-18s and people who do not smoke should not start. The Frontiers in Oncology study involved 35 vapers, 24 smokers and 24 non-users. Researchers collected oral epithelial cell samples and used RNA sequencing to compare gene expression between the groups. Shane Margereson, whose work with adult vape customers at Ecigone connects directly to product choice and responsible retail, said: "Adult smokers using vaping to move away from cigarettes should stick to reputable retailers, check product information carefully and avoid anything that looks like an unregulated import. "Flavour choice is personal, but it should never come before compliance, ingredient transparency or official health advice. Vapes are for adult smokers, not children, under-18s or people who have never smoked."