• Posted December 4, 2024

Smoking/Vaping Combo Lowers Odds for Quitting Nicotine

People who smoke and vape are less able to break free of their nicotine addiction than folks who only have one of those habits, a new review concludes.

Instead, these “dual users” are more likely to eventually drop vaping and continue smoking tobacco, results show.

The findings point to the insidious pull of nicotine and undermine arguments that vaping can help people quit smoking, researchers said.

“While it may have been argued that heavy smokers might benefit from dual use by reducing their daily cigarette consumption, the high nicotine content of vapes adds to the risk of continued nicotine addiction,” said investigator Josef Hamoud, a research assistant with the University Medical Center Gottingen in Germany.

For the study, published Dec. 3 in the journal Open Research, his team analyzed data from 16 previous studies of vaping and smoking. The studies included more than 9,300 people, including more than 2,400 dual users.

“Given the extensive marketing of vapes as healthier alternatives to conventional smoking, they have gained popularity among people trying to quit smoking,” Hamoud said in a journal news release. “Some people are using them in addition to their conventional cigarettes, classifying them as dual users.”

But just 24% of dual users quit nicotine completely within two years, compared with 25% of people who only smoke and 35% of people who only vape, researchers found.

On the other hand, more than half (55%) of dual users switched to cigarettes only after two years.

People who are dual users also continue to both smoke and vape for an extended period, rather than quitting cigs, researchers found.

During the medium term, 8 to 12 months, about two in five (38%) of dual users continued using both vapes and cigarettes, results show.

“This cannot be considered a simple ‘transitional state’, but rather a risk for prolonged double exposure,” Hamoud said.

Overall, the results indicate that “dual use might be even more harmful than conventional smoking,” Hamoud said.

Dr. Filippos Filippidis, chair of the European Respiratory Society Tobacco Control Committee, agreed with Hamoud.

“We know that vaping is commonplace and that many people use e-cigarettes as well as cigarettes, often in the hopes of cutting down on smoking or quitting the habit,” Filippidis, who was not involved in the study, said in the news release. “This large study examined all existing evidence on dual users, and it showed that, for most people, this is not a stepping stone to quitting.”

“Nicotine in vapes is highly addictive, so we need to do all we can to discourage non-smokers from starting to vape,” Filippidis added. “E-cigarettes may have a role in smoking cessation for some people, but we need to make sure appropriate support is freely available to help people to quit, as it's clear that many end up being dual users, which can actually undermine smoking cessation attempts.”

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has more on vaping and quitting.

SOURCE: European Respiratory Society, news release, Dec. 4, 2024