E-Cigarettes More Effective in Helping Smokers Quit Than Nicotine Patches

Electronic cigarettes appear to be at least as effective as nicotine patches in helping people to give up smoking, research suggests. The devices, which are rapidly growing in popularity, produce a vapour containing nicotine.

bbc.co.uk

The findings, presented at the European Respiratory Society, showed similar numbers quitting with e-cigarettes as patches, but more had cut down. There was a call, however, for long-term data on safety.

huffingtonpost.com

A team at the University of Auckland, in New Zealand, conducted the first clinical trial comparing the devices with nicotine patches in 657 people.

dnaindia.com

The results published in the Lancet showed 7.3% using e-cigarettes had quit after six months compared with 5.8% using patches. However, the study did not involve enough people to definitively prove which is the better option.

After six months, however, the 57% of e-cigarette users had halved the number of cigarettes smoked each day compared with 41% in those using patches.

The percentage of middle and high school students who smoke electronic cigarettes more than doubled between 2011 and 2012, bringing to light questions about whether an item that is not currently regulated by the FDA and is touted as less harmful than conventional cigarettes may actually spur people to smoke the old-fashioned way.

aljazeera.com

In the first large-scale look at the use of electronic cigarettes — otherwise known as e-cigarettes — among children, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control polled 19,000 sixth through tweflth grade students in 2011, and another 25,000 students in the same age range in 2012.

pentagonpost.com

Electronic cigarettes are battery-powered and deliver nicotine in aerosol form, and are touted by the companies who make them as a safer alternative to regular cigarettes. They began to appear on store shelves in 2006, but marketing of e-cigarettes has exploded in the last few years

usnews.com

The study, which was released by the CDC on Thursday, found that 10 percent of high school students said they'd smoked an e-cigarette in 2012, up from 4.7 percent in 2011.

During the same time period, high school kids who reported smoking e-cigarettes within the last month rose to 2.8 percent from 1.5 percent in the previous year. E-cigarette use also doubled among middle school students between 2011 and 2012.

aljazeera.com

"The increased use of e-cigarettes by teens is deeply troubling," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, in a statement. "Nicotine is a highly addictive drug. Many teens who start with e-cigarettes may be condemned to struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine and conventional cigarettes."

While e-cigarettes are not regulated by the FDA, the agency in 2011 announced its intent to regulate them as tobacco products rather than drug delivery devices, putting them in the same category as traditional cigarettes. More than 20 states have banned store sales of e-cigarettes to minors so far.

bloomberg.com

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