New Study on Vapes and Smokers who don't want to quit

There’s a new study going around regarding the impact of vapes on smokers that have no intention of quitting smoking or cigarettes. The study tracks 1600 smokers who had no intention of quitting and had never tried electronic cigarettes. In five years, the researchers found that smokers who started vaping daily were eight times more likely to quit cigarettes than those who did not.

The researchers noted that most studies regarding vaping and quitting smoking tended to include only smokers who were already interested in quitting smoking. Those studies leave out smokers who were uninterested in quitting. The researchers conducted the study to understand the impact electronic cigarettes had on all smokers - not just those who were included in current studies.

Although it was likely unintentional, most of the users that were tracked for the study were fairly heavy smokers. While roughly 80% of the participants smoked more than 10 cigarettes per day. A little over half of them smoked a pack or more per day.

Once the participants were screened and deemed to be eligible, there were three things measured in follow up surveys - their current usage of electronic cigarettes, whether or not they still smoked cigarettes daily, and whether or not they still smoked cigarettes at all.

Though the study is hopeful, it is still a study that proves correlation, not causation. The paper notes that there may be individual factors that simply made some people more likely to quit, and the desire to quit cigarettes can change over time. Additionally, the vape products available to the public have changed a lot even over the course of the experiment. Hopefully, more experiments come out focusing on the impact of electronic cigarettes.

References:

Association of e-Cigarette Use With Discontinuation of Cigarette Smoking Among Adult Smokers Who Were Initially Never Planning to Quit | Lifestyle Behaviors | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network

A New Study Finds That Smokers With No Plans To Quit Are Much More Likely To Stop Smoking If They Vape Every Day