E-Cigarettes

Electronic Cigarettes as Good as Patch for Quitting Smoking

Neil Canavan

Sep 09, 2013

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BARCELONA, Spain — Electronic cigarettes are as effective as the patch when it comes to helping smokers overcome the cravings of nicotine addiction, suggests the first randomized study of its kind.

The work, presented here at the European Respiratory Society (ERS) 2013 Annual Congress, and simultaneously published online in the Lancet, demonstrates that smokers using e-cigarettes and those using the patch are able to abstain from smoking in equal proportions after 6 months.

Chris Bullen, MD, director of the National Institute for Health Innovation at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and his team compared 3 approaches to smoking cessation in 657 smokers. Participants actively trying to quit were randomly assigned to active e-cigarettes that contained 16 mg of nicotine, placebo e-cigarettes with no nicotine, or patches that contained 21 mg of nicotine./.../