New research reveals e-cigarettes don’t help people to quit smoking

Smoking e-cigarettes doubles the risk of heart attack

Smoking e-cigarettes doubles the risk of heart attack. image: creative commons

New research has revealed that e-cigarettes do not help people to quit smoking

According to new research conducted by Professor John Pierce, of the University of California in San Diego, e-cigarettes do not help anybody to quit smoking. In fact, it reveals that smokers are more likely to go back to smoking real cigarettes within twelve months of starting with the e-cigarettes. The study was published in the JAMA Network Open journal and is the first of its kind to be carried out.

“Our findings suggest individuals who quit smoking and switched to e-cigarettes, or other tobacco products, actually increased their risk of a relapse back to smoking over the next year by 8.5 percentage points compared to those who quit using all tobacco products”, said the professor.

He added, “Quitting is the most important thing a smoker can do to improve their health, but the evidence indicates that switching to e-cigarettes made it less likely, not more likely, to stay off of cigarettes”.

In a period between 2013 to 2015, Professor Pearce and his team in America monitored 13,604 smokers – including -e-cigarette users – during which they used 12 different tobacco products. This group was then compared to another group of former smokers. Data showed that from the first group, around 8.5 per cent of them were deemed likely to revert to smoking normal cigarettes.

Vaping is promoted in the UK as an anti-smoking tool by Public Health England. Their research reportedly showed that 50 per cent of former smokers had successfully stayed off cigarettes and other tobacco products for at least twelve months. This was compared to only 41.5 percent who had been using e-cigarettes, or other aids, and had not gone back to smoking.

Professor Karen Messer, the co-author of the report commented, “Our goal was to assess whether recent former smokers who had switched to e-cigarettes or another tobacco product were less likely to relapse to cigarette smoking compared to those who remained tobacco-free”.

“This is the first study to take a deep look at whether switching to a less harmful nicotine source can be maintained over time without relapsing to cigarette smoking”, Prof Pierce added, “If switching to e-cigarettes was a viable way to quit cigarette smoking, then those who switched to e-cigarettes should have much lower relapse rates to cigarette smoking. We found no evidence of this”, as reported by independent.co.uk.

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Written by

Chris King

Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com

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