Study: E-cigarettes may not help you quit smoking

Smokers who use e-cigarettes were 49 percent less likely to reduce cigarette use and 59 percent less likely to quit smoking compared to smokers who never used e-cigarettes, according to the study published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health.

E-cigarettes don’t contain tobacco, but users exhale a mixture of volatile organic compounds, heavy metals and very fine particles that usually contain aerosolized nicotine in a cloud of vapor, according to a release from the University of California-San Diego, which led the study.

“We need further studies to answer why they cannot quit,” said lead author Dr. Wael Al-Delaimy, a professor at the university, in the release. “One hypothesis is that smokers are receiving an increase in nicotine dose by using e-cigarettes.”

The study followed 1,000 California smokers over one year.

The American Vaping Association slammed the study as disingenuous, pointing out that it was funded in part by the California Department of Public Health, which began a multimillion-dollar campaign against vaping.

“Asking smokes about their ‘ever use’ of a product, and then somehow attributing that ‘ever use’ to their subsequent success or failure in quitting smoking months or years down the line is dishonest and unethical,” said President Greg Conley.

The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the association’s funding claims.

Nevertheless, the findings are the latest to bring heat on the e-cigarette industry. On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that e-cigarette use among teenagers tripled from 2013 to 2014.

The Food and Drug Administration only regulates e-cigarettes that are used for therapeutic purposes. The agency issued proposed regulations last year that covers all e-cigarettes and includes a ban for sale to minors and other provisions, but they have yet to be finalized. E-cigarette groups have supported the ban on minors.