Italian Study Says E-cigs Can Help Cut Tobacco Use

Source from:  Winston-Salem Journal  06/27/2013

A study by Italian researchers on the use of electronic cigarettes found that the products can lead to decreased use of traditional cigarettes and help smokers have a better chance at quitting tobacco altogether without causing significant side effects.
 
The University of Catania researchers studied 300 smokers who were not intending to quit over a year. They were given two different nicotine strengths of a popular e-cigarette model in Italy, Categoria from Arbi Group Srl.

The researchers determined there was a 22.3 percent reduction in traditional cigarette consumption by week 12 and 10.3 percent by the end of the study. About 11 percent of the participants had complete abstinence from tobacco smoking by week 12 and 8.7 percent by the end of the study.

"Withdrawal symptoms were infrequently reported during the study," the researchers found. "Participants' perception and acceptance of the product under investigation was satisfactory."

E-cigarettes are playing an increasingly large role in the heated advocacy debate involving smokeless tobacco. Some anti-tobacco group s back a "quit or die" approach, saying e-cigs can serve as a gateway tobacco product for youths and a device to keep adults using nicotine and tobacco.

Other advocates promote e-cigs as a reduced-risk option compared with traditional cigarettes.

" Research on e-cigarettes is urgently needed in order to ensure that the decisions of regulators, health-care providers and consumers are based on science," the researchers concluded. "Although, these data are promising, they are not definitive, and more research about long term safety of these products is still required." Enditem