Put this in your pipe and smoke it
by Andrew Seaman,
2016-02-11 05:00:00.0
PEOPLE who use electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are less likely to quit traditional cigarettes than people who don’t use the devices, a fresh look at past research suggests.
"The odds of quitting were 28% lower for smokers using e-cigarettes than people not using e-cigarettes," says senior author Stanton Glantz, of the Centre for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California.
E-cigarettes often look like traditional cigarettes, but they use a battery and heating device to deliver nicotine and other flavourings through vapours instead of smoke.
Glantz and his co-author Sara Kalkhoran write in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine that people use e-cigarettes for various reasons including to quit smoking traditional cigarettes and to get nicotine where smoking is prohibited. Both motivations are themes in e-cigarette marketing, they say.
For the new review, the researchers searched online catalogues to find studies that examined e-cigarette use and whether people ultimately quit smoking. They found 38 studies, and combined the data from the 20 that compared cigarette smokers who use e-cigarettes to smokers who don’t use them.
The 20 studies with combined data were conducted from 2008 until last year, and they all followed between 100 to several thousand smokers, typically tracking these participants from a few months to a couple of years.
Overall, they found that the odds of quitting smoking were 28% lower among people who used e-cigarettes. Researchers also checked to see if the results differed depending on study design, how e-cigarette use was measured, the type of people included in the study and other factors — but the results were the same.
"So e-cigarettes are not only not helping people quit smoking, they’re also inhibiting people from quitting smoking," Glantz says.
It’s not clear why e-cigarettes may keep people from quitting smoking, he says. One possible explanation is that e-cigarettes have been allowing people to get their nicotine fix in otherwise smoke-free environments.
Smoke-free environments are known to be very effective in getting people to quit, Glantz says.
"By blunting that effect, it’s probably undermining the motivation to quit and the ease of people quitting," he says.
Dr Steven Bernstein writes in an editorial that one limitation of the new review is that the odds of quitting smoking were not tied to e-cigarette use when the analysis was restricted to people who said they actually wanted to quit. An additional limitation is that there are only two randomised trials — considered the "gold standard" of medical research — included in the analysis, writes Bernstein, of the Yale School of Medicine and the Yale School of Public Health in Connecticut.
"This is not the fault of the authors; abundant, published, methodologically rigorous studies simply do not exist yet," he writes.
Glantz says it is important to acknowledge that some people have quit smoking while using e-cigarettes. Also, four of the studies included in the new analysis found e-cigarettes may help people quit smoking.
But he says the overall pattern is that e-cigarettes reduced the odds of quitting.
The researchers also caution that these results may change in the future.
"It may be that next year or five years from now, the product will be different, along with the marketing and regulation environments," says Glantz.
Reuters
Overall, studies found that the odds of quitting smoking were 28% lower among people who used e-cigarettes. Pictures: REUTERS/NEIL HALL
PEOPLE who use electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, are less likely to quit traditional cigarettes than people who don’t use the devices, a fresh look at past research suggests.
"The odds of quitting were 28% lower for smokers using e-cigarettes than people not using e-cigarettes," says senior author Stanton Glantz, of the Centre for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California.
E-cigarettes often look like traditional cigarettes, but they use a battery and heating device to deliver nicotine and other flavourings through vapours instead of smoke.
Glantz and his co-author Sara Kalkhoran write in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine that people use e-cigarettes for various reasons including to quit smoking traditional cigarettes and to get nicotine where smoking is prohibited. Both motivations are themes in e-cigarette marketing, they say.
For the new review, the researchers searched online catalogues to find studies that examined e-cigarette use and whether people ultimately quit smoking. They found 38 studies, and combined the data from the 20 that compared cigarette smokers who use e-cigarettes to smokers who don’t use them.
The 20 studies with combined data were conducted from 2008 until last year, and they all followed between 100 to several thousand smokers, typically tracking these participants from a few months to a couple of years.
Overall, they found that the odds of quitting smoking were 28% lower among people who used e-cigarettes. Researchers also checked to see if the results differed depending on study design, how e-cigarette use was measured, the type of people included in the study and other factors — but the results were the same.
"So e-cigarettes are not only not helping people quit smoking, they’re also inhibiting people from quitting smoking," Glantz says.
It’s not clear why e-cigarettes may keep people from quitting smoking, he says. One possible explanation is that e-cigarettes have been allowing people to get their nicotine fix in otherwise smoke-free environments.
Smoke-free environments are known to be very effective in getting people to quit, Glantz says.
"By blunting that effect, it’s probably undermining the motivation to quit and the ease of people quitting," he says.
Dr Steven Bernstein writes in an editorial that one limitation of the new review is that the odds of quitting smoking were not tied to e-cigarette use when the analysis was restricted to people who said they actually wanted to quit. An additional limitation is that there are only two randomised trials — considered the "gold standard" of medical research — included in the analysis, writes Bernstein, of the Yale School of Medicine and the Yale School of Public Health in Connecticut.
"This is not the fault of the authors; abundant, published, methodologically rigorous studies simply do not exist yet," he writes.
Glantz says it is important to acknowledge that some people have quit smoking while using e-cigarettes. Also, four of the studies included in the new analysis found e-cigarettes may help people quit smoking.
But he says the overall pattern is that e-cigarettes reduced the odds of quitting.
The researchers also caution that these results may change in the future.
"It may be that next year or five years from now, the product will be different, along with the marketing and regulation environments," says Glantz.
Reuters
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