New study shows nicotine replacement helps to quit smoking – even when smokers not ready.

SCOTTSDALE —  A news report by Reuters suggests nicotine replacement therapy can help smokers quit even when they do not think they are ready.

In this study, which took place in the United Kingdom, smokers who do not yet want to quit but are prepared to reduce their smoking were twice as likely to stop in the long term when they used nicotine replacements to help them cut down the number of cigarettes smoked, the University of Birmingham team reported.

It is well known that most people have a difficult time in trying to stop smoking.  Int this study, the researchers commented that half of British smokers try to stop every year, and that only 2 to 3 percent succeed. U.S. research suggests similar results the average smoker attempting to quit six to 11 times to before succeeding. “Until now experts have advised people not to reduce their smoking but to quit abruptly,” Paul Aveyard, one of the researchers. “The worry has been that advising reduction will somehow deter people from the better alternative, which is stopping right now,” he added.

The team reviewed a set of clinical trials involving nearly 3,000 subjects. Overall, 6.75 percent of individuals using some type of nicotine replacement were able to go six months without smoking; that is more than twice as many as those who were given placebos. “This treatment program is a way of potentially encouraging a lot more smokers into actually using nicotine replacement, which in the long term will help more of them stop smoking than if they hadn’t done so.” said, Paul Aveyard. Importantly, the studies suggest that half of those who managed six months without smoking will maintain it for the rest of their lives.