Vaping 'matches patches for stopping smoking'

Conclusion This was a well-designed trial that set out to see whether nicotine-containing e-cigarettes are more effective than nicotine replacement patches at helping people to quit smoking. This is an important research question because of the health benefits associated with quitting smoking and the rising popularity of e-cigarettes over the past decade or so. Vapour analyses conducted in this trial showed that 300 puffs from one nicotine e-cigarette cartridge delivers 3-6mg of nicotine, the equivalent of smoking between one and five tobacco cigarettes. The main outcome the researchers wanted to investigate was the continuous abstinence rate six months after the planned quit date. Despite the higher apparent rates of people achieving this outcome in the nicotine e-cigarette group, the difference in rates from the patches and placebo group were not significant. This meant people using e-cigarettes were no more likely to quit smoking than people using patches or a placebo. In this sense, the researchers did not achieve the main objective of their trial, which was to demonstrate that e-cigarettes are more effective than NRT patches, as this was not demonstrated. E-cigarettes were found to in fact be no more or less effective than patches (or dummy e-cigarettes) for the main outcome of the trial. As the researchers say, though, the proportion of people who achieved continuous abstinence at six months was low in all groups, and lower than they had expected. Therefore, the res...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news