14 DAY TRIAL // According to the conclusions of a new scientific investigation led by tobacco researcher Pamela Ling, from the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF), it would appear that using electronic cigarettes is not that effective in helping smokers quit their habit. These conclusions have already reignited the debate on the benefits of using these devices at all.
Results of studies such as this one are very important for the rapidly growing industry that manufactures e-cigarettes and countless accessories. At the same time, tobacco researchers are trying their best to keep up with the new devices. Their goal is to figure out how using electronic cigarettes will impact smokers' health in the long run.
The main problem is that e-cigarettes are oftentimes advertised as a healthier alternative to actual cigarettes. Manufacturers say that their products are less likely to lead to lung cancer and other similar conditions, and urge smokers to make the switch from traditional to electronic cigarettes. Many experts agree that vaporizing a nicotine liquid and inhaling the vapors is not as harmful as regular smoke.
The issue that anti-tobacco activists have with these devices is that they could be making smoking glamorous again, by removing the health risk part of the equation. Researchers say that this change in trends could reverse the progress made by countless people who have decided to face their addictions head-on, and have prevailed in the process.
In the new study, the UCSF team tracked the progress of 949 test participants who willingly reported their smoking habits via an online survey. Of this test group, 88 people had made the switch to electronic cigarettes. Upon follow-up examinations, the research group found that e-cigarette group members were no more likely to have quit the habit than people smoking regular cigarettes.
Ling said in an email to Nature News that “there was no difference in the rate of quitting between smokers who used an e-cigarette and those who did not” even after the team accounted for other factors that might have influenced the results, such as how dependent on tobacco each smoker was.
“Advertising suggesting that e-cigarettes are effective for smoking cessation should be prohibited until such claims are supported by scientific evidence,” adds Ling. Details of the investigation were published in the March 24 issue of the esteemed journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
The new investigation “provides an important addition to the growing body of research suggesting that e-cigarettes are not particularly good at promoting quitting,” comments researcher Vaughan Rees, who is the deputy director of the Center for Global Tobacco Control at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts.