Electronic cigarettes ‘don’t aid quitting’, study says
But some researchers argue that it is too early to dismiss potential health benefits.
The controversy over electronic cigarettes has been reignited today with the publication of a study claiming that they do not help smokers to quit their habit.
Pamela Ling, a tobacco researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, and her colleagues followed 949 people who detailed their smoking habits though an online survey, and found that 88 of those who had used e-cigarettes were no more likely to have quit or reduced their smoking after a year than other smokers. “We found that there was no difference in the rate of quitting between smokers who used an e-cigarette and those who did not”, even after controlling for factors such as the user's dependence on tobacco, Ling told Nature in an e-mail.Whether or not ‘e-cigarettes’ are an effective aid in the cessation of smoking has become a major issue for the rapidly growing industry that produces the devices, and for the tobacco researchers struggling to assess their impact. There is widespread agreement that inhaling from an e-cigarette, where a heating element vapourizes a liquid containing nicotine, is not as harmful as smoking a conventional cigarette, and proponents say that the products could save millions of lives. But some researchers and tobacco-control activists fear that the devices could make tobacco use seem socially acceptable again and may not assist people in actually reducing their addiction.
She added: “Advertising suggesting that e-cigarettes are effective for smoking cessation should be prohibited until such claims are supported by scientific evidence.” Her team reports the results today in JAMA Internal Medicine1.
Smokers' saviour?
Peter Hajek, director of the Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at the Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, says that many researchers think e-cigarettes represent “the best hope so far to put a stop to smoking-related death and disease by replacing deadly cigarettes with a safer alternative”.
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