Electronic cigarettes, which provide nicotine without the cigarette smoke toxins, work just as well as nicotine patches in helping people to quit smoking, according to a new study in the medical journal The Lancet[1] .


New Zealand researchers found that the smoking cessation success rate[2] was about the same for smokers who tried to quit with electronic cigarettes and those who tried with nicotine patches. Indeed, similar results were even found for would-be quitters given placebo e-cigarettes -- that is, without nicotine.


Study participants who were unable to quit smoking completely still reduced their use of tobacco cigarettes when they were also using the e-version -- more even than those who used nicotine patches.


"Our study establishes a critical benchmark for e-cigarette performance compared to nicotine patches and placebo e-cigarettes[3] , but there is still so much that is unknown about the effectiveness and long-term effects of e-cigarettes," said Chris Bullen, director of the National Institute for Health Innovation at The University of Auckland, in a statement.


"Given the increasing popularity of these devices in many countries, and the accompanying regulatory uncertainty and inconsistency, larger, longer-term trials are urgently needed to establish whether these devices might be able to fulfill their potential as effective and popular smoking cessation aids[4] ," he added.


The findings are based on data from 657 smokers trying to quit, who were recruited through newspaper ads. Of those, 292 were assigned to use e-cigarettes with 16 milligrams of nicotine for 13 weeks, 292 were assigned to use nicotine patches for 13 weeks, and 73 were assigned to use placebo e-cigarettes that didn't have any nicotine in them.


Researchers followed up with study participants after the 13 weeks to see if they had successfully abstained from cigarettes.



Of those assigned to the e-cigarettes with nicotine, 7.3 percent had abstained from smoking during that entire period. Of those assigned to nicotine patches, 5.8 percent had abstained. And a little more than 4 percent of those assigned to the placebo e-cigarettes abstained. Researchers said the differences among those percentages were not statistically significant, meaning the e-cigarette and nicotine patch groups had about the same smoking cessation success rate.


Among the majority of participants who didn't quit smoking entirely, 57 percent of those assigned to the e-cigarettes cut their use of regular cigarettes at least in half, compared with only 41 percent of those assigned to the nicotine patches.


After the study was over, those who had been assigned to electronic cigarettes, both the placebo and nicotine versions, were more likely to continue their use: About one in three kept smoking them, compared to less than one in 10 who continued to use the nicotine patches. E-cigarette users were also more likely than patch users to recommend the product to others.


In a related commentary in The Lancet, Peter Hajek, of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine and the U.K. Center for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies at the Queen Mary University of London, wrote that while much more research is needed, the findings suggest that e-cigarettes can help quit-minded smokers to stop the habit and lead to less use of traditional cigarettes. At the same time, he acknowledged the concerns that e-cigarettes could actually increase smoking by "renormalizing" the behavior:


There is an obvious source of evidence as to whether use of e­cigarettes leads to an increase or reduction in tobacco smoking: the trajectories of sales of e­cigarettes and tobacco cigarettes. If growing sales of e­cigarettes coincide with increased sales of tobacco cigarettes, tobacco control activists arguing for restriction of e­cigarette availability would be vindicated. If traditional cigarette sales decline as e­cigarette sales increase, it would suggest that e­cigarettes are normalising non­smoking and that it is in the interest of public health to promote and support their development rather than try to restrict it.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report recently found that electronic cigarette use is up in a demographic who likely aren't trying to quit entrenched smoking habits: middle and high school students. According to the report, 1.78 million youths in middle and high school[5] said they had tried an e-cigarette at least once in the last year. The percentage of high schoolers who said they had tried an e-cigarette rose from 4.7 percent in 2011 to 10 percent in 2012.


The Food and Drug Administration has yet to regulate electronic cigarettes[6] , though it has said it plans to do so soon. Not much information exists so far on the product's long-term safety. Some research has been done on e-cigarettes' effect on the heart[7] (there didn't seem to be any), their effect on the lungs[8] (they appeared to increase airway resistance), and the chemicals they contain (the FDA found two brands contained carcinogens[9] and an anti-freeze chemical).



Also on HuffPost:




Loading Slideshow...



  • Mindfulness


    Mindfulness training helped participants in a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21723049" target="_hplink">2011 <em>Drug and Alcohol Dependence</em> study</a> to stay off cigarettes.

    That study included 88 people who smoked 20 cigarettes daily, on average, who were split up into two groups: One received four weeks of mindfulness training, while the other group went through four weeks of an <a href="http://www.ffsonline.org/" target="_hplink">American Lung Association stop-smoking program</a>.

    The researchers found that more of those who went through the mindfulness training smoked fewer cigarettes -- and stayed off them -- than those who went through the other stop-smoking program.

    The mindfulness training included <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/minding-the-body/201204/can-mindfulness-help-you-quit-smoking" target="_hplink">realizing when you're facing a craving</a>, accepting it, thinking about what's happening and then taking note of the sensation (whether it's tightness or pressure), <em>Psychology Today</em> reported.




  • Weight Lifting


    Jogging and bicycling aren't the only exercises that could help you kick the smoking habit -- <em>Shape</em> magazine reported that <a href="http://www.shape.com/latest-news-trends/study-says-weight-lifting-can-help-smokers-quit-and-lose-weight" target="_hplink">weightlifting could help</a>, too.

    The research, published in the journal <em>Nicotine & Tobacco Research</em>, showed that doing two hour-long weightlifting sessions for 12 weeks <em>plus</em> undergoing treatment to quit smoking was linked with greater success in quitting smoking, compared with just undergoing the stop-smoking treatment.




  • Eat Produce


    <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/10/fruits-vegetables-quit-smoking-smokers-tobacco_n_1581465.html" target="_hplink">Eating lots of fruits and veggies</a> could help smokers maintain a tobacco-free lifestyle, according to research from the University of Buffalo.

    The study, published in the journal <em>Nicotine and Tobacco Research</em>, included 1,000 smokers ages 25 and older. The researchers had the participants answer surveys about their smoking habits and their fruit and vegetable intake. Then, they followed up with them 14 months later and asked them if they used tobacco over the past month.

    The researchers found that there was a relationship between the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/10/fruits-vegetables-quit-smoking-smokers-tobacco_n_1581465.html" target="_hplink">amount of fruits and vegetables</a> the study participants ate, and the likelihood that they quit -- and stayed off -- tobacco. In fact, people who ate the most produce in the study were three times more likely to report that they'd been tobacco free in the previous month.

    The researchers also found a link between increased produce consumption and taking longer in the day to have the first cigarette, smoking fewer cigarettes, and decreased dependence on nicotine (based on test results).




  • Acupuncture And Hypnosis


    A review of studies suggests there is evidence that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/acupuncture-quit-smoking-hypnosis_n_1497348.html" target="_hplink">acupuncture and hypnosis</a> can work to help quit smoking, Reuters reported.

    Researchers, who published their findings in the <em>American Journal of Medicine</em>, said that other options -- like medications and counseling -- should be tried first, but that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/11/hypnosis-quit-smoking_n_1248444.html" target="_hplink">hypnosis</a> and acupuncture could help if those options don't work, or if people don't want to go on medications, according to Reuters.




  • Text Messages


    Who knew your phone could be used to help you quit smoking?

    A recent study published in the <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60701-0/abstract" target="_hplink">journal <em>The Lancet</em></a> showed that smokers who enrolled in a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/05/smoking-text-message_n_888188.html" target="_hplink">program called "txt2stop"</a> -- where they received encouraging text messages to quit smoking -- were twice as likely to kick the habit after six months, compared with smokers who didn't get any encouraging messages.

    In the study, conducted by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, one group was able to text words like "lapse" and "crave" to a phone number, and <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20075843-247/want-to-quit-smoking-try-text-message-support/" target="_hplink">received an encouraging text</a> message in return, CNET reported. The other group of people, however, only got one text message every two weeks, and that message just thanked them for being part of the study.




  • Quitting Smoking And Health


    Eletta Hansen explains some facts about smoking, and discusses if your body gets healthier after you quit smoking