Electronic cigarettes to quit smoking? Like nicotine patches, e-cigs could help smokers say goodbye to blondes
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerous
Electronic cigarettes to quit smoking? Like the nicotine patches, e-cigs could help smokers say goodbye to blondes.
A few days after the investigation conducted by the Lifebuoy which revealed the presence of heavy metals in electronic cigarettes, a study presented at the congress of European Respiratory Society (Ers) in progress in Barcelona and published in The Lancet instead compares electronic cigarettes with patches that release nicotine, evaluating the health effects in daily life in a sample of subjects.
A systematic review. Coordinated by Chris Bullen, director of the National Institute for Health Innovation University of Auckland, the researchers divided 657 smokers and smokers who intended to quit into two groups. 292 had a 13-week supply of e-cigarettes with refills containing up to 16 mg of nicotine per ml, another 292 received a similar supply of nicotine patches of a type known to be safe and effective; all the members of these two groups did not know the quantity and / or the presence of nicotine in the refills received. The other 73, on the other hand, received placebo cigarettes.
At the end of the overall six months of the study, only 5,7% had quit completely and the success rate was higher in the e-cigarette group (7,3%), compared to 5,8% in the patch group at nicotine and 4,1% of the placebo e-cigarette group.
More harmful than patches or electronic cigarettes? The scholars found no differences in adverse event rates, which could mean e-cigarettes are comparable to patches in terms of safety as well.
But is it still worth it? There must be a reason if the European Union considers including them as medicinal products. While some experts fear that e-cigarettes may be a gateway to nicotine addiction, others have decidedly more optimistic outlooks and see e-cigs as the most useful method at least to reduce smoking.
We only feel to recommend caution regarding the use of electronic cigarettes, pending irrefutable scientific evidence. Meanwhile, quitting smoking can also be the result of a great and enviable willpower or of other techniques considered harmless (hypnosis, autogenic training, psychological support, reading of special books, etc.).
Quitting smoking can only be good for your health!
Germana Carillo
READ also:
- Electronic cigarettes: heavy metals in liquids
- Electronic cigarettes: safety data is lacking
- Cigarettes: the new EU measures against tobacco lobbies
- Electronic cigarettes: is aspirated nicotine minimal?
