E-Cigarettes And Smoking Cessation

Health hazards of smoking

It is estimated that in the United States alone, 1200 people are dying daily due to smoking-related illnesses. Worldwide, around 5 million deaths per year are connected to tobacco. Lung cancer is one of the major killers and the major cause of cancer mortality among men worldwide. Several studies reveal that smoking as many as 20 cigarettes a day for 20 years makes a smoker a prime candidate for lung cancer.

In addition to nicotine, tobacco contains several toxic carcinogenic substances that over the expanded period of exposure dramatically increase the likelihood of cancer development. Nicotine itself is addictive but not carcinogenic – the really dangerous chemicals are the components of tobacco’s tar.

Smoking cessation products

Most smokers struggle when they attempt to quit the tobacco addiction. Despite the growing number of quitting aids, the number of people who successfully dump cigarettes in the first attempt remains low. In fact, tobacco smoking is considered more addictive than many illegal drugs such as cannabis and amphetamines.

The smoking cessation products primarily aim to reduce the withdrawal symptoms. These products are used for short period of time and include various prescription drugs and some over-the-counter products.Nicotine-containing lozenges and chewing gums are available in many pharmacies and shops, they are usually admixed with sweetening agent. Transdermal nicotine patches have the advantage of long-lasting effect and they do not interfere with any physical activity. Nasal spray and oral inhaler are also used, they tend to deliver nicotine faster in comparison to other products.

Some of the most commonly used prescription drugs for smoking cessation include chantix (varenicline tartrate) and Zyban (buproprion). Chantix decreases the craving for nicotine and also reduces the withdrawal symptoms. Zyban belongs to the class of antidepressants and helps in smoking cessation program.

E-cigarette: how it works?

E-cigarette is one of the newer additions to the arsenal of tools available to the smokers who aim for a healthier lifestyle. It was first developed by a Chinese company called Ruyan in the year 2000 and slowly gained popularity as a potent weapon against smoking addiction. It made its arrival into the US market in 2007 and since then it helped many people across the globe to quit smoking.

The vapor produced by e-cigarette contains nicotine, the major compound behind the tobacco addiction, but has no other dangerous components such as tar, which are very abundant in the usual cigarette smoke. E-cigarettes imitate the process of smoking more closely than other quitting aids. They supply smokers with nicotine through the usual inhalation route and in the form of hits associated with every puff. The device is also sometimes called an electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS).

Read More: Exposing Ten Little-Known Facts About E-Cigarettes

The device uses a heating element that vaporizes a nicotine-containing liquid solution. The liquid, called e-juice or e-liquid, is a solution of propylene glycol and/or polyethylene glycol with concentrated flavors. Some e-cigarettes are designed to release the nicotine and some are made to release only a vaporized flavor. The nicotine-containing electronic cigarettes release a lesser amount of nicotine as compared to a regular cigarettes and the amount released varies among different brands.

E-Cigarettes Are One Of The Most Effective Products For Smoking Cessation

Many people start smoking electronic cigarettes in conjunction with their normal tobacco cigarettes. Over some period of time they decrease their daily quota of tobacco cigarettes reducing them to a relatively harmless proportion. At the end they stop taking tobacco cigarettes and feel content with e-cigarettes.

Many people who smoked for over 20 years and are tobacco-free now praised e-cigarettes as an important and potent way of smoking cessation. However, much work has to still be done over the reliable usage of e-cigarettes as the aids for smoking cessation. The FDA hasn’t yet approved its use as a standard measure. The fact that e-cigarettes don’t contain tobacco renders them free of any strict legislation by the authorities and thus makes them potentially dangerous to minors who might use them.

The British Medical association also supports that there is potential evidence of smoking cessation with e-cigarettes but there are concerns that e-cigarettes are less well regulated in terms of use as compared to the conventional nicotine replacement therapies.

The American Medical Association grades electronic cigarettes quite similar to the other conventional nicotine replacement administrations and supports them as a harm reduction method for the people who have failed to quit smoking by other methods.

Comparative effectiveness of e-cigarettes and nicotine patches

The solid scientific data backing the benefits of e-cigarettes are still insufficient too. The recently published results of clinical trial comparing e-cigarettes and nicotine patches helped to fill this gap in the knowledge.

Scientists from the University of Auckland in New Zealand compared the efficiency of e-cigarettes and patches in helping people to stop smoking or in the reduction of the number of cigarettes smoked. They found that 7.3% of people using e-cigarettes quit the smoking after 6 months. This is low, but still this represents a better success rate in comparison with the users of nicotine patches among whom the rate of cessation was just 5.8%.

A comprehensive analysis by the University of Oxford and the University of Leicester, published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, found nicotine e-cigarettes, varenicline, and cytisine to be the most effective options for helping smokers quit long-term​​. The study synthesized data from over 300 clinical trials involving more than 150,000 people, providing a robust view of the relative effectiveness of different smoking cessation methods​.

The research showed that e-cigarettes helped approximately 14 smokers per 100 quit long-term, a rate higher than those trying to quit without any aids. This was found to be similar to the effectiveness of varenicline and cytisine, but more effective than using a single form of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). Using two forms of NRT together, such as a patch and gum, was almost as effective as e-cigarettes.

Read More: Teen Use of E-Cigarettes Doubles In US in Just One Year

Many former smokers admit that quitting smoking is easier these days. Compared to not such a distant past, we now have the large arsenal of aids that can help in fighting the addiction. E-cigarettes, the popular option for those who decided to quit smoking, are now confirmed to be at least as efficient as nicotine patches. The use of e-cigarettes helps to substantially reduce the number of smoked cigarettes. In the long term, this has a potential of saving many lives from smoking related diseases.