Nicotine addiction can develop from vaping within weeks, says professor Kristiina Patja, who has worked in the field for over 20 years

However, experimentation can turn into addiction quickly. The developing brains of young people are particularly sensitive to nicotine.

In studies, the first signs of addiction have been observed already after minimal use.

“So addiction is born in weeks, not months or years,” says the healthcare professor Kristina Padja from the University of Helsinki.

Patja is a healthcare specialist and has worked with tobacco and nicotine addiction for over 20 years.

Vaping is not a minor phenomenon among young people.

A year 2025 in the school health survey about one in eight elementary school 8th-9th graders and more than one in five young people studying for a trade said that they use e-cigarettes.

Only now has it been noticed how years of continuous vaping affects health. Nicotine is the same substance regardless of the product, and its known harms do not change depending on whether it is dosed from a cigarette or an e-cigarette.

A review the authors emphasize in their comment In the journal Naturethat the range of potential harms associated with vaping young people turned out to be wider than expected.

Of interest, but the hard-to-interpret findings are related to mental health.

In the year 2026 in a review published shaking was consistently linked to anxiety, depression and panic disorder in large studies.

In international studies, anhedonia, i.e. difficulty experiencing pleasure, and suicidal thoughts have also been reported more often in young people who vape.

According to Patja, the same connection has been found in smokers, and depressive symptoms have been found to ease after stopping nicotine use.

In studies, it is difficult to distinguish whether the use of nicotine increases symptoms or whether young people who are already anxious or depressed are more susceptible to using e-cigarettes than others.

There may also be other factors in the background. However, Matja finds repeated contact in the studies to be credible. According to him, the essential thing is that the results of different studies point in the same direction.

Matja would associate suicides and attempted suicides with vaping more cautiously. Based on the results, it should not be concluded that nicotine directly increases the risk of suicide.

Nicotine affects several neurotransmitter systems in the brain. With repeated exposure, the brain adapts to the presence of nicotine.

Without nicotine, withdrawal symptoms can appear, such as low mood and difficulty concentrating.

According to Matja, nicotine can be an additional burden on the brain if the young person is already prone to depression or otherwise has a stressful life situation.

“I think this chemical dependency is definitely the most serious thing in terms of a person’s health and prognosis,” he says.

Nicotine the effects are not limited to the brain.

It constricts the blood vessels, accelerates the heart rate and increases the workload of the heart. According to Matja, nicotine affects sugar metabolism and the body’s defense system.

The effects on the blood circulation and defense system hinder oral health and the healing of tissues and injuries.

In addition, nicotine affects sleep and appetite.

“It breaks the structure of sleep,” says Patja.

Nicotine can reduce the feeling of hunger and thus affect eating.

With an electronic cigarette there are also disadvantages independent of nicotine. when an aerosol and the chemicals it contains are inhaled into the lungs.

There are a huge number of products and liquids, and their true composition or the user’s exposure is not always known.

For a long time much less is known about the effects of time. According to Patja, some of the serious consequences may not become visible until decades later, as was the case with smoking.

“Perhaps in 15–20 years, that crop will be harvested,” says Patja.

Mattress is critical of the fact that new nicotine products are launched on the market before there is any evidence of their long-term effects.

For him, the arrangement is disobedient. Society is required time and time again to prove the harms of new products, instead of manufacturers having to prove their products are safe.

Matja sees the same pattern repeated from light cigarettes to snuff, electronic cigarettes and nicotine pouches.

In his opinion, the discussion easily gets stuck in comparing the harmfulness of individual products, even if it is essential to look at nicotine addiction as a whole.

As long as new products attract young people to try nicotine and some of them become addicted, according to Patja, the population-level problem will not be solved by one product proving to be less harmful than another.