United States: An anti-smoking medication has also been found to assist individuals to leave the addiction of vaping behind.
According to the latest research, Chantix or varenicline is an FDA-approved drug for smoking cessation, taken as a pill, and the currently available trial tested varenicline in electronic cigarettes, dose-delivery devices that work with e-cigarettes loaded with nicotine.
Lisa Fucito, the lead researcher and the director of the Tobacco Treatment Service at the Yale Cancer Center in New Haven, Conn, stated, “We had a 15 percent difference in quit rates, with those in the medication group having a quit rate of 45 percent,” US News reported.
More about Varenicline
Varenicline is an FDA approved oral drug to aid smoking cessation through inhaling the pleasure of smoking in the brain, NIH says.
It got approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which would allow people to quit smoking tobacco cigarettes, and thus scholars were curious whether it could be used to quit e-cigarettes, as US News reported.
Fucito added, “People can get to very high levels of nicotine exposure with these e-cigarette products, and they can use them nearly constantly throughout the day. Therefore, the concerning point is that, ‘Can any pharmacotherapy stand up to this challenge?'”
The findings of the study were published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine on May 16.
About the usage of e-cigarettes in the US
Currently, nearly 1 in 20 US adults use e-cigarettes, though the figure is even as high as one in every 15 among adults aged 18 to 24.
A more recent investigation included 40 patients who were chosen randomly and put in two groups that took either varenicline or a sugar pill.
The treatment regimen was eight weeks in all participating patients. The patients were also given a booklet about vaping cessation and one counseling session in addition to the pills.
While 45 percent of participants in the varenicline group were successful in their attempt to quit vaping by the 8th week, only 30 percent of the participants in the placebo group achieved the same.
Results of the study
According to the results of the study, a large-scale trial study is required to ensure that varenicline can be helpful in making patients quit vaping, as the researchers concluded.
Fucito added, “We need more pharmacotherapy treatments to help address the really strong physical dependence that can develop from e-cigarette use,” and “People undergo significant withdrawal when they try to stop, and that withdrawal is so unpleasant and hard to manage with just behavioral support alone.”