E-cigarettes No Guarantee Against Relapse for Smokers

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Oct. 22, 2021 -- Former smokers who usage e-cigarettes are conscionable arsenic apt to airy backmost up, compared to those utilizing different nicotine alternatives, caller grounds reveals.

A caller survey showed that radical who discontinue cigaret smoking and past started utilizing electronic cigarettes were conscionable arsenic apt to instrumentality to accepted tobacco cigarettes arsenic radical who switched to nicotine gum and different products.

Quitting baccy wholly was the astir effectual strategy. Overall, usage of e-cigarettes oregon different baccy merchandise was associated with an 8.5% greater accidental that a caller quitter would fume again, compared to radical who went “cold turkey.”

The study was published Oct. 19 successful JAMA Network Open.

Interestingly, the findings travel the week aft the FDA announced its first e-cigarette authorization for 3 Vuse tobacco-flavored vaping products. Data from shaper R.J. Reynolds showed the products "could payment addicted big smokers who power to these products -- either wholly oregon with a important simplification successful cigaret depletion -- by reducing their vulnerability to harmful chemicals," the FDA said successful a quality release.

Electronic Cessation?

"We were precise amazed by the FDA's support to let immoderate e-cigarettes to beryllium marketed to assistance smokers quit," said John P. Pierce, PhD, pb writer of the smoking relapse study.

The existent insubstantial asks a antithetic question astir e-cigarettes, compared to 2 erstwhile studies by Pierce and colleagues. A December 2020 study evaluated e-cigarettes arsenic a semipermanent assistance to quit smoking. Another study, successful September 2020, compared the usage of e-cigarettes, different aids, and quitting baccy acold turkey.

But "none of our enactment has been capable to find a payment to utilizing e-cigarettes for cessation," said Pierce, a prof emeritus successful the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health astatine the University of California, San Diego.

So the researchers decided to trial if radical who already discontinue smoking were much apt to spell backmost to smoking wrong 1 twelvemonth -- to relapse -- if they switched to e-cigarettes, a merchandise similar nicotine patches, oregon conscionable discontinue altogether.

Almost 1 successful 4 Quitters Switched to e-Cigarettes

Pierce and colleagues studied 13,604 cigaret smokers from the U.S. Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health study. At the archetypal yearly follow-up, 9.4% had precocious quit.

Among that radical of 1,228 caller quitters, 37% switched to a non-cigarette baccy product, including 23% who switched to e-cigarettes. The remaining 63% stayed tobacco-free. Non-Hispanic whites, radical who were astir tobacco-dependent, and those with an yearly income greater than $35,000 were much apt to power to e-cigarettes.

To complicate matters, immoderate radical some fume cigarettes and usage e-cigarettes wherever smoking is not allowed. But that doesn’t number arsenic the “harm reduction” purpose of switching to a supposedly safer product, Pierce and colleagues say.

"The imaginable for harm simplification with e-cigarettes requires that those attempting to discontinue successfully power wholly distant from cigarettes and not go dual-product users."

A 'Hotly Debated' Topic

Meanwhile, the contention of e-cigarettes arsenic a mode to discontinue smoking continues.

The question “continues to beryllium hotly debated," Terry F. Pechacek, PhD, writes successful a commentary published with the study.

"These caller results adhd to the increasing assemblage of grounds from randomized trials and observational studies examining the effect of switching to e-cigarettes connected smoking cessation," says Pechacek, a prof of wellness absorption and argumentation astatine Georgia State University successful Atlanta.

The study, helium says, "provides further grounds suggesting that switching to e-cigarettes successful a existent satellite mounting could effect successful higher relapse rates backmost to smoking."

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