USING e-cigarettes and other tobacco products to keep from relapsing to cigarettes doesn’t appear to be effective, according to a new longitudinal study of nearly 13,000 smokers in the United States.

“This is the first study to report on whether cigarette smokers can switch to e-cigarettes without relapsing to cigarette smoking,” said study author John Pierce, a professor of family medicine and public health at the University of California San Diego Institute for Public Health in the Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Sciences.

“Quitting is the most important thing a smoker can do to improve their health,” he said in a statement attached to the study, “but the evidence indicates that switching to e-cigarettes made it less likely, not more likely, to stay off of cigarettes.”

The study did not look at the use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) designed to help people stop smoking, Pierce said. Those therapies include patches, gum and lozenges that contain limited amounts of nicotine. “This paper is not focused on quit attempts,” Pierce said. “It is focused on people who appear to have been successful at quitting cigarettes and whether those who switched to an alternative nicotine source do better than those who are abstinent from nicotine.”

E-cigarettes are increasingly being used as a nicotine alternative as smokers seek ways to kick their habit — and then stay off cigarettes for good. E-cigarettes work by heating a pure liquid called e-juice — composed of flavorings, propylene glycol, glycerin and often nicotine — until it vaporizes.

The use of vaping for tobacco cessation became especially popular in the U.K. after a study found that e-cigarettes helped 50,000 to 70,000 smokers in England quit smoking in 2017.

Vaping supposedly eliminated the 7,000 or more chemicals found in a burning cigarette and its smoke, many of which are toxic, according to Johns Hopkins medicine.

But their use has become controversial in the U.S. and other countries due to warnings about possible long-term health effects, possibly from ingredients besides nicotine in the vape juice or cartridge. The U.S. Surgeon General says vapes can contain “ultrafine particles that can be inhaled deep into the lungs, flavorants such as diacetyl, a chemical linked to serious lung disease, volatile organic compounds and heavy metals, such as nickel, tin, and lead.”

In addition, numerous studies found teen use is a direct gateway to traditional cigarette smoking at a time when juvenile use of e-cigarettes was skyrocketing.

(SD-Agencies)