E-Cigarettes DO NOT Help Smokers Quit: Study

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Some smokers turned to e-cigarettes because they believed it is less unhealthy than the actual cigarettes. Others do so with high hopes that it will help them quit smoking later on, but a new study suggested otherwise.

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat up a liquid containing nicotine and artificial flavoring. The vapor is inhaled and exhaled much like a tobacco. Many smokers though that this is their way to successfully turned their back on cigarettes.

On Thursday, a new study from the University of California, San Francisco announced that there is no truth to claims that e-cigarettes can aid for giving up tobacco, The Jordan Times reported. Yes, vaping has no positive effects on smokers trying to quit.

The researchers examined the findings of 38 studies conducted across the globe about e-cigarette use. They concluded that e-cigarette smokers were 28 percent less likely to quit smoking. The team realized that the data contested the usual beliefs about e-cigarettes helping smokers to quit tobacco, but instead it hampered the attempts at quitting.

"The irony is that quitting smoking is one of the main reasons both adults and kids use e-cigarettes, but the overall effect is less, not more, quitting," said study co-author Stanton Glantz. "While there is no question that a puff on an e-cigarette is less dangerous than a puff on a conventional cigarette, the most dangerous thing about e-cigarettes is that they keep people smoking conventional cigarettes."

"E-cigarettes should not be recommended as effective smoking cessation aids until there is evidence that, as promoted and used, they assist smoking cessation," said Dr. Sara Kalkhoran of Harvard Medical School, Metro has learned.

However, some remain doubtful to the study. Peter Hajek, director of the Queen Mary University of London's Tobacco Dependence Research Unit, found the results to be "grossly misleading." According to him, the study only examined current smokers who, at some point, used an e-cigarette but did not include smokers who used the device to quit the habit.

Ann McNeill, a King's College London professor of tobacco addiction believed that the review was "not scientific." The study included two studies that she co-authored but she claimed that it was used in ways that were "either inaccurate or misleading."

McNeill suggested to dismiss the findings.

Steven Bernstein of the Yale School of Medicine commented that despite the concerns over the data, the study raised several concerns especially about e-cigarettes being an aid to quitting from the unhealthy habit of smoking.

The study is published in the journal Lancet Respiratory Medicine.