Cochrane: e-cigarettes help more smokers quit than nicotine patches

Regulated nicotine e-cigarettes help more people stop smoking than nicotine replacement products such as patches or gum, according to an updated review by the research network Cochrane, published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. It covers 80 randomised trials with 29,861 participants, nine of them added in the latest version. The review is periodically updated with new evidence.

The authors say there is high-certainty evidence that e-cigarettes lead to about four additional quitters per 100 people compared with nicotine replacement therapy. Compared with nicotine-free e-cigarettes, the difference is about two per 100. E-cigarettes also performed better than no support or behavioural support alone, but that evidence is less certain. The researchers found no evidence that using e-cigarettes to quit increases the risk of serious harm, though longer-term research is needed.

"We have very strong evidence that regulated nicotine e-cigarettes are substantially less harmful than smoking," said senior author Jamie Hartmann-Boyce of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The findings apply only to regulated nicotine products; illicit devices or those containing other substances such as THC may carry different risks. "Although nicotine vapes are unlikely to be completely risk-free, they are less harmful than smoking," said lead author Nicola Lindson of the University of Oxford.