TUESDAY, April 7, 2026 (NewsDay News) — Smokers who use electronic nicotine cigarettes (ECs) are more likely to quit than those who use most other methods, according to a review published online March 26, 2026.Addiction.
Angela Difeng Wu, D.Phil., of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, and colleagues gathered the available evidence from systematic reviews on the effectiveness and safety of ECs to determine whether the benefits outweigh the potential harms.
Based on 14 reviews of intervention studies (seven of high quality), researchers found that of 21 meta-analyses comparing nicotine EC with other interventions, all reported estimates favor nicotine EC for smoking cessation, with relative risks or coefficients ranging from 1.17 to 16.16. 2.09 compared to EC without nicotine. Of the 13 studies that meta-analyzed serious adverse events, two reported point estimates of an increase in serious adverse events for nicotine EC and other estimates showed no difference. Composite assessments of adverse events generally showed little or no difference between groups. Evidence and gap mapping identified absolute gaps in evidence comparing the effects of EC nicotine to cytisine, bupropion, and nicotine patches.
Jamie Hartman-Boyce, Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst said in a statement: “We set out to find out if scientists agree on whether e-nicotine cigarettes help people quit smoking.” “Based on the consistency of the findings here, it’s clear that they do.”
