Electronic Cigarettes for Smoking Cessations - Have we reached a Tipping Point?

Nancy A. Rigotti

The author highlights that the evidence 'indicates that switching completely from smoking combustible cigarettes to vaping nicotine e-cigarettes substantially reduces a person’s exposure to tobacco toxins, reduces respiratory symptoms, and reverses smoking-related physiological changes' with these results likely to 'translate into future declines in the risk of tobacco-related diseases'.

Rigotti points out that the policy debate around vaping has tended to overshadow the evidence that it has been used as a smoking-cessation tool that could help the millions who still smoke. Randomized clinical trials such as the recent Swiss study (Reto Auer et al.) and a 2024 Cochrane systematic review 'show the growth in evidence regarding the efficacy and safety of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation' and 'the evidence now supports a strong conclusion that e-cigarettes are tools that clinicians can use to help adults stop smoking, especially those who are unable to quit with current evidence-based treatments'.

Rigotti believes it 'is now time for the medical community to acknowledge this progress and add e-cigarettes the smoking-cessation toolkit' and 'the evidence has brought e-cigarettes to a tipping point. The burden of tobacco-related disease is too big for potential solutions such as e-cigarettes to be ignored.'

Read the full article here.