Smokers attempting to quit commonly find themselves relapsing, even if they manage to abstain for a period of time. However, a new study, in the journal Addiction, suggests that those who continue to use a nicotine patch even when they experience a relapse may be slightly better off.
In this study, a researcher from the University of Pittsburgh and colleagues enrolled over 500 heavy smokers who were all interested in quitting. The participants received either nicotine patches or placebo patches and completed follow-up appointments six weeks and ten weeks into the study. Rather than looking at complete abstinence from cigarettes, the researchers examined whether, even if the participants relapsed, they had been able to recover from the lapse and be smoke-free for at least one week prior to the appointment. The results showed that participants in the nicotine patch group were 11 times more likely not to have smoked over the past week than were the placebo group at the six-week follow-up. At the 10-week follow-up, 10 percent of participants in the nicotine patch group had abstained for at least a week, as opposed to only 2 to 3 percent of the placebo group. The authors suggest that, based on these results, smokers who want to quit may be well-advised to continue to use the nicotine patch, even if they experience a relapse and start smoking again.
But ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross has again lost patience with the sophistry of the frequently repeated phony comparisons trumpeting a ten-fold greater abstinence rate with this or that NRT product. And yet, when you look at the actual data, as here, he says, you find that the successful quitters amounted to an unacceptable 10 percent at 10 weeks! And that s among dedicated quitters. The real take-home message here is, once again, NRT patches do not work to help smokers quit.
Another important point to be gleaned from this research is just how readily supposed experts in the smoking cessation field are willing to deviate from the FDA label for such products, by simply advising smokers to ignore the approved directions which stipulate that smokers use the patches only for six weeks, emphasizing that they must not smoke during that time. Yet, when the same experts are asked about more effective quitting methods, like smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes, notes Dr. Ross, their response is a predictable No stick to the FDA-approved methods. This is purely agenda-driven and not based on science or public health.