Health & Medicine
Could E-Cigarettes be More Effective than the Patch for Quitting Smoking?
Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Sep 09, 2013 02:14 PM EDT
Many health skeptics believe that electronic cigarettes could just be a gateway to other tobacco products.
Yet a recent study shows how using e-cigarettes in an attempt to weed off regular cigarettes could be as effective as those who use the patch in order to quit.
According to the study, researchers recruited 584 smokers in Auckland, New Zealand who wanted to stop smoking. Half were given electronic cigarettes while the other half received coupons for nicotine patches. Another 73 of the participants were given e-cigarettes without nicotine.
According to a six month study lead by associate professor at the University of Auckland Christopher Bullen, he found that 7.3 percent of e-smokers had dropped cigarettes compared to 5.8 percent of people wearing the patch.
There's no doubt that quitting smoking is a difficult task. In fact, the study shows that of 584 smokers involved, only 38 of them were actually able to quit when given the e-cigarette or the patch. And unfortunately, a low success rate like this wasn't enough to tell whether or not either approach was a better alternative for giving up the addictive habit.
"What we couldn't show is that [e-cigarettes are] definitely superior to nicotine patches," said Bullen, who was expecting that e-cigarette use would be more successful at determing smoking than using the patch when looking at the results from consumer surveys.
Bullen concludes that as e-cigarettes work much in the same way as cigarettes, as old smokers can ritualistically draw on them for support, the behavioral replacement may prove more effective than the patch. However, further research is required in order to determine the connection.
More information regarding the study can be found via The Lancet.
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First Posted: Sep 09, 2013 02:14 PM EDT
Many health skeptics believe that electronic cigarettes could just be a gateway to other tobacco products.
Yet a recent study shows how using e-cigarettes in an attempt to weed off regular cigarettes could be as effective as those who use the patch in order to quit.
According to the study, researchers recruited 584 smokers in Auckland, New Zealand who wanted to stop smoking. Half were given electronic cigarettes while the other half received coupons for nicotine patches. Another 73 of the participants were given e-cigarettes without nicotine.
According to a six month study lead by associate professor at the University of Auckland Christopher Bullen, he found that 7.3 percent of e-smokers had dropped cigarettes compared to 5.8 percent of people wearing the patch.
There's no doubt that quitting smoking is a difficult task. In fact, the study shows that of 584 smokers involved, only 38 of them were actually able to quit when given the e-cigarette or the patch. And unfortunately, a low success rate like this wasn't enough to tell whether or not either approach was a better alternative for giving up the addictive habit.
"What we couldn't show is that [e-cigarettes are] definitely superior to nicotine patches," said Bullen, who was expecting that e-cigarette use would be more successful at determing smoking than using the patch when looking at the results from consumer surveys.
Bullen concludes that as e-cigarettes work much in the same way as cigarettes, as old smokers can ritualistically draw on them for support, the behavioral replacement may prove more effective than the patch. However, further research is required in order to determine the connection.
More information regarding the study can be found via The Lancet.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone