Yesterday we received an email from Ann Garner of Pittsburgh, PA. She wrote: "I'm a smoker who has just become pregnant and my doctor keeps recommending that I use the nicotine patch to quit, but I've done some research and I'm not convinced it's going to help me. What should I do?'
Whilst we are reluctant to question the advice of doctors, it's difficult to understand how Ann's baby will benefit from regular doses of an addictive drug, so this is a great question.
Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) was first introduced as a quitting aid in the 1980s. Today, it comes in a variety of forms: nicotine patches, gum, nasal inhalators, lozenges, e-cigarettes, nicotine water, nicotine lollipops - the list is endless.
The idea behind NRT is that the smoking problem has two components; physical addiction to nicotine, and the psychological 'need' to smoke. Nicotine replacement is used to maintain the physical aspect of the addiction while giving the addict the chance to deal with the psychological aspect. Once that is successfully dealt with, then they can address the physical side. The only problem is that this theory is complete nonsense: nicotine addiction is the problem, how can it also be the solution? Would you give an alcoholic alcohol to get off alcohol or crack to a crack addict to help him stop using crack?
According to Clive Turner, Director of Action on Smoking and Health and long-time advocate of NRT, the long-term success rate for NRT products is around 6%. An article on whyquit.org shows that the success rate for second- or third-time NRT users is less than using nothing at all.
By contrast, Allen Carr's simple, drug-free Easyway method delivered via webcasts, books and live seminars has a 12-month success rate of 63.6% for a pack-a-day smoker. This rises to 75.8% for people who are able to take advantage of our support programme.
For a commonsense approach to quitting visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com
Showing posts with label nicotine replacement therapy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nicotine replacement therapy. Show all posts
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Quit smoking success rates: Nicotine patch
Every day we get visitors to our site asking about the success rate for other quit smoking methods, so today I would like to focus on one of the most popular (and least effective!) quit smoking aids: the nicotine patch.
The nicotine patch is an adhesive patch that releases nicotine into the bloodstream. It is marketed as a quit smoking aid, and for years manufacturers have claimed that the patch "double your chances of quitting" (this claim appears on the US Surgeon General's office, Health Canada, Cancer Society and Heart Assocation websites) but double it from what to what? From 50% to 100% or from 1% to 2%?
Believe it or not, it is actually much harder than you think to find out even something this straightforward. The reason for this is that researchers rarely quote an actual success rate. Instead they compare the success of a treatment to placebo or to no treatment and quote the difference as an Odds Ratio (OR). So if a treatment is twice as effective as placebo, it has an OR of 2. If it's half as effective the OR would be 0.5.
There have been hundreds of studies looking into the effectiveness of the nicotine patch. Cochrane's Review, an independent body examining evidence-based treatments, identified 111 trials covering over 40,000 smokers and concluded that the nicotine patch has an OR of 1.66 vs. placebo.
So, if you slap a nicotine patch on, then you have a 66% better chance of quitting than if you wore a patch with no nicotine. This is interesting to me. If nicotine replacement really worked, you would expect it to be two, three or even five times higher than placebo or using nothing at all.
Clive Bates, Director of Action on Smoking and Health in the UK and one of the most vocal supporters of nicotine replacement therapy sheds some light on this issue. In a post on a discussion thread in April 2002, Mr. Bates wrote: "The unaided quit rate is about 3% success per attempt. NRT doubles that to 6%."
So, according to one of its biggest supporters, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) has a success rate of 6% or, put another way, a 94% failure rate.
Allen Carr was dismissive of NRT from the beginning. He said "Telling a nicotine addict to stop using nicotine by taking nicotine is a bit like telling an alcoholic to drink beer instead of wine."
Ellen DeGeneres said it best: "The nicotine patch only works when you put one over each eye so you can't find your cigarettes!"
For a simple, no-BS, drug-free approach to quitting, visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com
The nicotine patch is an adhesive patch that releases nicotine into the bloodstream. It is marketed as a quit smoking aid, and for years manufacturers have claimed that the patch "double your chances of quitting" (this claim appears on the US Surgeon General's office, Health Canada, Cancer Society and Heart Assocation websites) but double it from what to what? From 50% to 100% or from 1% to 2%?
Believe it or not, it is actually much harder than you think to find out even something this straightforward. The reason for this is that researchers rarely quote an actual success rate. Instead they compare the success of a treatment to placebo or to no treatment and quote the difference as an Odds Ratio (OR). So if a treatment is twice as effective as placebo, it has an OR of 2. If it's half as effective the OR would be 0.5.
There have been hundreds of studies looking into the effectiveness of the nicotine patch. Cochrane's Review, an independent body examining evidence-based treatments, identified 111 trials covering over 40,000 smokers and concluded that the nicotine patch has an OR of 1.66 vs. placebo.
So, if you slap a nicotine patch on, then you have a 66% better chance of quitting than if you wore a patch with no nicotine. This is interesting to me. If nicotine replacement really worked, you would expect it to be two, three or even five times higher than placebo or using nothing at all.
Clive Bates, Director of Action on Smoking and Health in the UK and one of the most vocal supporters of nicotine replacement therapy sheds some light on this issue. In a post on a discussion thread in April 2002, Mr. Bates wrote: "The unaided quit rate is about 3% success per attempt. NRT doubles that to 6%."
So, according to one of its biggest supporters, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) has a success rate of 6% or, put another way, a 94% failure rate.
Allen Carr was dismissive of NRT from the beginning. He said "Telling a nicotine addict to stop using nicotine by taking nicotine is a bit like telling an alcoholic to drink beer instead of wine."
Ellen DeGeneres said it best: "The nicotine patch only works when you put one over each eye so you can't find your cigarettes!"
For a simple, no-BS, drug-free approach to quitting, visit us at www.TheEasywayToStopSmoking.com
Friday, August 21, 2009
More BS from Britain's NHS
Britain's National Health Service (NHS) has just issued a self-congratualtory press release about its quit smoking service, claiming a 40% "success rate". This is spin, laid on top of spin, with a bit of spin on the side.
Quit smoking success rates are usually measured at 6 months. The NHS's 40% "success rate" is after just four weeks. And it gets worse...as the NHS's primary recommendation is to use nictoine replacement therapy (NRT), that a large proportion of the 40% of "successful" quitters are still using nicotine!
Research shows that with smokers quitting using willpower or NRT there is significant relapse rates between 4 weeks and 6 months, so the real life success rate is likely to be closer to the 5-7% suggested by the independent, evidence-based resource Cochrane's.
In addition, the 40% success rate is of all smokers who set a quit date with the NHS service. What about those that didn't? Ah, well, we'll just forget those shall we?
And in terms of value for money the NHS service gets worse, not better, with their cost per quitter up 26% vs. 2008.
For a no-BS, drug-free, pain-free quit smoking method, visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com
Quit smoking success rates are usually measured at 6 months. The NHS's 40% "success rate" is after just four weeks. And it gets worse...as the NHS's primary recommendation is to use nictoine replacement therapy (NRT), that a large proportion of the 40% of "successful" quitters are still using nicotine!
Research shows that with smokers quitting using willpower or NRT there is significant relapse rates between 4 weeks and 6 months, so the real life success rate is likely to be closer to the 5-7% suggested by the independent, evidence-based resource Cochrane's.
In addition, the 40% success rate is of all smokers who set a quit date with the NHS service. What about those that didn't? Ah, well, we'll just forget those shall we?
And in terms of value for money the NHS service gets worse, not better, with their cost per quitter up 26% vs. 2008.
For a no-BS, drug-free, pain-free quit smoking method, visit us at www.theeasywaytostopsmoking.com
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