E-cigarettes Are More Effective For Quitting The Habit

E-cigarettes Have Higher Quitting Rates Than Nicotine Replacement Treatment

A recent trial has found out that 18% of smokers who used e-cigarettes were finally able to break the habit and stayed smoke-free after the first year. While only 10% of smokers managed to become smoke-free using nicotine replacement treatments.

886 smokers were used in the first test to see how effective E-cigarettes are for quitting the habit and becoming smoke-free.

Researchers are trying their best to find results and studies to suggest that e-cigarettes are much better than smoking and show evidence so that e-cigarettes can be offered at local services to help stop smoking.

Public Health England has made numerous attempts to try and spread the work about healthier vaping. They want e-cigarettes to be available at the NHS in about 5 years. They constantly stand by their best study and revolutionary research that says e-cigarettes are at least 95% less harmful than traditional smoking.

We haven’t had enough time to analyse the long-term effects of smoking and how effective they are for quitting smoking. Once we get more data and research we will be able to roll-out e-cigarettes to all the stop smoking services and really promote them as the best way to quit the habit.

Peter Hajek from the University of Queen Mary had this to say: “Although a large number of smokers report that they have quit smoking successfully with the help of e-cigarettes, health professionals have been reluctant to recommend their use because of the lack of clear evidence from randomised controlled trials.”

Smoking reduction

Some participants in the trial said that they had previously failed to give up smoking before. The participants had been split into two different groups; one group received some nicotine-replacement treatment such as patches, gum and sprays. The other group were given an e-cigarette starter package with a few bottles of liquid.

The reason they were only given a few bottles is because the e-cigarette group were told to buy their own future supplies, ranging from different types of flavours and strengths.

The study published by the England Journal of Medicine found that the e-cigarettes had a higher rate of participants quitting and reduced their overall smoking by 50%. They were also much more comfortable to use and more helpful than the nicotine-replacement treatment the other group had been using.

Professor Hajek gave a statement based on the test results “This may ultimately further accelerate the reduction in smoking and in smoking-related diseases.” He hoped that this experiment would mean that nicotine-replacement services would be replaced by e-cigarettes.

Limits to the experiment

The study isn’t completely perfect however as the experiment wasn’t blind. The participants knew which treatment they were getting and possibly perceived nicotine replacements as the inferior solution. Which results in the nicotine-replacement group putting less effort in to try and quit smoking?

The study would need further development however, especially if it can be used outside of the UK to try and support vaping across the world. But just like we have been told countless times, it’s too early to know the long term effects of e-cigarettes. So unless we get the long term data soon, it’s still going to be a while until e-cigarettes are pushed as the best way to quit smoking.

What do you think about e-cigarettes compared to traditional cigarettes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!