New UC study critical of vaping's effectiveness in getting people to quit smoking
A lot of smokers are switching to e-cigarettes to try and kick their nicotine fix, but does vaping really help kick the habit?
University of California researchers are trying to answer that question.
"When we look at the U.S. population of cigarette smokers, we're just not seeing that e-cigarettes are helping them quit," said Natalie Quach, a bio-statistics PhD student at UC San Diego.
Quach is the
study's first author
. She says they analyzed data from over 6,000 U.S. smokers.
"One of our findings shows that, among smokers who vape daily, there's about a 14.7% drop in vaping and smoking cessation rate," Quach said.
Not only that, but they found vaping could have the opposite effect on someone who wants to quit.
"This suggests that vaping is prolonging both smoking and nicotine dependence among U.S. smokers," Quach said.
There's also the question of if vaping is better for you. Quach says we really don't know.
"Right now, it's too early to tell what the long-term consequences of e-cigs will be. But research that has come out so far shows that they're not harmless," Quach said.
Natalie says she's not trying to tell people what to do, but just wants everyone to have information to make an informed decision.
The project was supported by the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program of the University of California Office of the President.
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