Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco
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Comparative Study
E-cigarettes: Comparing the Possible Risks of Increasing Smoking Initiation with the Potential Benefits of Increasing Smoking Cessation.
The public health community is divided regarding electronic cigarettes. Skeptics emphasize potential vaping-induced increases in smoking among children and possible health hazards for adults. Enthusiasts consider e-cigarettes much less dangerous than smoking and believe they increase adult smoking cessation. We compare potential health benefits and costs to put these two perspectives in context. ⋯ Our analysis strongly suggests that the upside health benefit associated with e-cigarettes, in terms of their potential to increase adult smoking cessation, exceeds their downside risk to health as a result of their possibly increasing the number of youthful smoking initiators. Public messaging and policy should continue to strive to reduce young people's exposure to all nicotine and tobacco products. But, they should not do so at the expense of limiting such products' potential to help adult smokers to quit.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
E-cigarettes May Support Smokers With High Smoking-Related Risk Awareness to Stop Smoking in the Short Run: Preliminary Results by Randomized Controlled Trial.
E-cigarettes may be positively used in tobacco cessation treatments. However, neither the World Health Organization nor the American Food and Drug Administration has recognized them as effective cessation aids. Data about the efficacy and safety of e-cigarettes are still limited and controversial. ⋯ E-cigarettes increased the stopping rate as well as the reduction of daily cigarettes in participants who continued smoking. In fact, although all participants reported a significant reduction of tobacco consumption compared to the baseline, the use of e-cigarettes allowed smokers to achieve a better result. It could be worthwhile to associate this device with new ICT-driven models of self-management support in order to enable people to better handle behavioral changes and side effects. This is true for ready-to-quit smokers (such as our participants) but can also be advantageous for less motivated smokers engaged in clinical settings.