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E-Cigarettes to Quit Smoking May Not Result in Success

In HealthDay News
by Healthday

Study reveals other smoking cessation aids are tied to more successful quits

TUESDAY, Feb. 8, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Electronic cigarettes are not as helpful as other smoking cessation aids in helping smokers successfully quit, according to a study published online Feb. 7 in Tobacco Control.

Ruifeng Chen, from University of California San Diego in La Jolla, and colleagues assessed the effectiveness of e-cigarettes in smoking cessation from 2017 to 2019, given the 2017 increase in high nicotine e-cigarette sales. The analysis included 3,578 previous-year smokers with a recent quit attempt and 1,323 recent former smokers.

The researchers found that 12.6 percent of recent quit attempters used e-cigarettes to help with their quit attempt, a decline from previous years. For e-cigarette users, cigarette abstinence (9.9 percent) was lower than for no product use (18.6 percent). The adjusted risk differences for e-cigarettes versus pharmaceutical aids was −7.3 percent, and for e-cigarettes versus any other method, the adjusted risk difference was −7.7 percent. Among recent former smokers, 2.2 percent switched to a high nicotine e-cigarette. While not statistically significant, individuals who switched to e-cigarettes had a higher relapse rate than those who did not switch to e-cigarettes or other tobacco.

“There is evidence that cigarette smokers were starting to use high nicotine e-cigarettes by 2019 and further follow-up in PATH [Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health] is needed to see whether these changes result in future cessation benefit,” the authors write.

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