Daily Vaping Leads To Accidental Quitting
Research shows that smokers who vape daily end up quitting tobacco even if they didn’t want to – adding to the positive evidence supporting ecigs being smoking cessation tools
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by Dave Cross
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The researchers said: “Adult smokers with no plans to quit are more likely to quit smoking traditional combustible cigarettes if they switch to daily vaping.”
The team focused their analysis on a select group of 1,600 smokers who initially had no plans to quit and were not using e-cigarettes when the study began, they found that those who subsequently vaped daily experienced eightfold higher odds of quitting traditional cigarettes compared to those who didn’t use e-cigarettes at all.
“These findings are paradigm-shifting, because the data suggest that vaping may actually help people who are not actively trying to quit smoking,” said Andrew Hyland, PhD, Chair of Health Behaviour at Roswell Park and scientific lead on the PATH Study. “Most other studies focus exclusively on people who are actively trying to quit smoking, but this study suggests that we may be missing effects of e-cigarettes by not considering this group of smokers with limited intention to stop smoking — a group that is often at the highest risk for poor health outcomes from cigarette smoking.”
Overall, only about 6% of all smokers included in the Roswell Park study quit smoking combustible cigarettes completely, but the rates of quitting were significantly higher among those who took up daily e-cigarette use —28% of smokers quit when they started vaping daily. The association between vaping and cigarette quitting held up even after adjusting for underlying characteristics such as educational background, income, gender, ethnicity and the number of cigarettes smoked per day at the beginning of the study.
“While clinical trials show strong evidence that vaping can help people quit smoking, findings from real-world population studies have been mixed,” added Karin Kasza, PhD, a research scientist in the Department of Health Behaviour at Roswell Park and first author of the study. “Our study identified a positive association between daily vaping and cigarette quitting specifically among the segment of smokers who were not planning to quit, consistent with data from clinical trials.”
The authors say few studies exploring the potential use of using e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool have considered smokers with no motivation or desire to quit. This Roswell Park study calls for greater consideration of smokers who are not planning to quit in order to fully understand the health impact of vaping on the U.S. population.
References:
- Association of e-Cigarette Use With Discontinuation of Cigarette Smoking Among Adult Smokers Who Were Initially Never Planning to Quit - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2787453
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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