Electronic cigarettes
worked just as well as nicotine patches to help smokers quit, according to the
first study to compare them.
E-cigarettes are
battery-operated products that look like real cigarettes and turn nicotine into
a vapor inhaled by the user. Since the devices hit the market nearly a decade
ago, sales have spiked so quickly some analysts predict they will outsell
traditional cigarettes within a decade. E-cigarettes are often marketed as a
less harmful alternative to traditional smokes and come in flavors including
cinnamon, vanilla and cherry.
"This
research provides an important benchmark for e-cigarettes," said Chris
Bullen, director of the National Institute for Health Innovation at the
University of Auckland in New Zealand, the study's lead author. Until now,
there has been little information about the effectiveness or safety of
e-cigarettes. "We have now shown they are about as effective as a standard
nicotine replacement product."
Bullen and
colleagues recruited 657 adult smokers in Auckland who wanted to quit for the
study. Nearly 300 got nicotine-containing e-cigarettes while roughly the same
number got nicotine patches. Just over 70 people got placebo e-cigarettes
without any nicotine. Each group used the e-cigarettes or patches for 13 weeks.
After six months,
similar rates of smokers _ 6 to 7 percent _ managed to quit after using either
the nicotine-containing e-cigarettes or patches. Only 4 percent of smokers
using the placebo e-cigarettes successfully quit.
Among smokers who
hadn't managed to quit, nearly 60 percent of those using e-cigarettes had cut
down the number of cigarettes smoked by at least half versus 41 percent of
those using nicotine patches. Smokers were also much bigger fans of the
e-cigarettes; nearly 90 percent of users said they would recommend them to a
friend compared to just over half of people who got patches.
Researchers also
found similar rates of side effects in smokers that used the e-cigarettes and
the patches. The most common side effect in all groups was breathing problems.
The study was
published online Sunday in the journal Lancet and presented at a meeting of the
European Respiratory Society in Barcelona, Spain. The e-cigarettes used in the
study were provided free by the company and the study was paid for by the
Health Research Council of New Zealand, a government funder.
Peter Hajek, an
anti-smoking expert at Queen Mary University of London, called it a
"pioneering" study and said health officials should seriously
consider recommending e-cigarettes to smokers who want to quit or cut down.
"E-cigarettes
also have the potential to replace cigarettes as a consumer product, so their
value is not just as a treatment," he said. Hajek authored an accompanying
commentary in the Lancet. "That could
stop the
tobacco-related disease and death epidemic if everyone switches to a safer way
of nicotine delivery," he said.
Hajek said that
even though more studies were needed on the long-term safety of e-cigarettes,
there weren't any imminent warning signs.
"E-cigarettes
may not be perfectly safe, but even if some currently unknown risk
materializes, they are likely to be orders of magnitude safer than normal
cigarettes," he said.
The European
Union and Britain are planning to regulate e-cigarettes as medical devices, a
decision that has provoked criticism from some scientists who argue that would
limit their availability to help smokers while cigarettes are not as tightly
regulated. It is the tar and other toxins in cigarettes which are deadly, not
the nicotine.
In the U.S., the
FDA plans to assert regulatory authority over the fast-growing category in the
near future. E-cigarettes could also still be regulated as drugs or
drug-delivery devices, if they are "marketed for therapeutic
purposes" _ for example, as a stop-smoking aid.
Bullen suggested
e-cigarettes could be monitored like lifestyle or consumer products to avoid
restricting their access.
"There needs
to be a middle ground where regulation is commensurate with the risk," he
said. "For people who are dependent on nicotine, we've got to provide them
with a safer alternative ... crushing their availability completely will be bad
for public health."
Article Credit: http://www.lasvegassun.com
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