Study: E-cig a day can keep tobacco away
People who use electronic cigarettes every day may be more likely to quit the traditional, chemical-laden combustible variety, according to a new study out of the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Tobacco Research and Treatment Center.
Daily e-cigarette use helps Americans quit smoking combustible cigarettes within one year and to stay abstinent for at least another year, according to the report published in Nicotine and Tobacco Research.
Although the health impacts of smoking e-cigarettes is not yet fully understood, it is generally accepted that the devices contain less toxins than combustible cigarettes, according to Dr. Sara Kalkhoran, an MGH physician and lead author on the study.
E-cigarettes contain nicotine but do not burn tobacco, which is responsible for many of the health problems associated with smoking combustible cigarettes, meaning that e-cigarette use could lead to less smoking-related disease.
Researchers analyzed data from more than 8,000 adult cigarette smokers and found that by the second and third years of data gathering, daily e-cigarette users reported a higher rate of abstinence from cigarette smoking that was almost double the rate of nonusers.
Smokers who used e-cigarettes, but not daily, were not more likely than nonusers to demonstrate prolonged abstinence from combustible cigarettes.
Although the data is encouraging, Kalkhoran said she always recommends that patients try FDA-approved treatments for smoking cessation before jumping to e-cigarettes, which are not considered to be a smoking cessation tool.
“E-cigarettes might be helpful for those people who have tried all those other modalities and are unwilling to try them again and this could present a new opportunity for them,” said Kalkhoran.
More research is still needed to understand how e-cigarettes affect the body.
“The hope is that this kind of encourages more research into the use of e-cigarettes to determine if they would be safe alternative for people to use,” said Kalkhoran.