Contrary to popular belief, it has been affirmed, yet again, that e-cigarettes do not reduce the risk of traditional smoking, strengthening the need for stricter regulation or a ban on such commercial products.
The study appeared in the American Journal of Public Health.
According to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, e-cigarette consumption has risen substantially, with more adolescents hooked on these mass-marketed electronic devices than ever before. But e-cigarettes are not utilized for smoking cessation, nor have they been considered a safe replacement for traditional nicotine cigarettes by health officials.
In a review of more than 60 studies on the topic, researchers investigated if e-cigarette consumption can reduce the risk of consuming traditional cigarettes.
“We searched PubMed, Web of Science Core Collection, and EMBASE and computed the association of e-cigarette use with quitting cigarettes using random effects meta-analyses,” the researchers wrote in their publication.
The study’s final determination: “As consumer products, in observational studies, e-cigarettes were not associated with increased smoking cessation in the adult population. In randomized clinical trials, provision of free e-cigarettes as a therapeutic intervention was associated with increased smoking cessation.”
