According to a study, smokers who use e-cigarettes to stop are almost twice as likely to succeed than those who use nicotine patches or gum.
A significant study involving over 900 smokers discovered that 16% of e-cigarette users had given up their habit after a year.
Only 9.9% of participants who used other types of nicotine replacement treatment, in contrast, were successful in stopping.
Professor Peter Hajek, the study’s principal investigator from Queen Mary University of London, said: “This is the first experiment to examine the effectiveness of contemporary e-cigarettes in assisting smokers in quitting. The ‘gold standard’ combination of nicotine replacement drugs was approximately half as effective as e-cigarettes.
“Despite the fact that many smokers claim to have successfully quit using e-cigarettes, health professionals have been hesitant to advocate for their usage due to the paucity of conclusive data from randomised controlled trials. This is now probably going to change.
The research, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, compared the effectiveness of refillable e-cigarettes with a variety of conventional smoking cessation methods, such as nicotine patches, chewing gum, lozenges, inhalators, and sprays.
In total, 886 smokers visited NHS Stop Smoking Services in East Sussex, Leicester, and London.
A nicotine replacement therapy of their choosing or an e-cigarette starter kit with one or two refill bottles were randomly assigned to each participant.
For at least four weeks, each participant got weekly one-on-one behavioral support.
The trial discovered that e-cigarette usage was both more frequent and prolonged.
In addition, one and four weeks after quitting, e-cigarette users reported fewer intense desires to smoke.
In the first week after quitting smoking, they also reported decreased anger, restlessness, and difficulty concentrating, according to the study.
“This groundbreaking research shows that switching to an e-cigarette can be one of the most effective ways to quit smoking, especially when combined with face-to-face support,” said Martin Dockrell of Public Health England.
“E-cigarette users who want to stop smoking should be welcomed by all stop smoking services.”
Despite being heavily marketed as cessation aids, there is still a lot of debate about the efficacy and safety of e-cigarettes.
E-cigarettes contain a wide variety of potentially harmful chemicals, according to a number of studies.
Nicotine is notoriously addictive, and there have been concerns that it could impair young teenagers’ growing brains.
The majority of specialists do concur that e-cigarettes pose far fewer health risks than tobacco products.
In response to the findings, the British Lung Foundation (BLF) urged the government to increase funding for stop smoking services.
“The research shows how important it is that everyone who wants to quit smoking using an e-cigarette or another method can access counseling and support from a specialist stop smoking service,” BLF Medical Director Dr. Nick Hopkinson stated.
