Users of heated-tobacco products and e-cigarettes are less likely to successfully quit smoking, new study finds

People who use both heated-tobacco products (heat-not-burn) and e-cigarettes are less likely to successfully quit smoking cigarettes, according to a new study.

E-cigarettes and heated tobacco products are part of a range of alternatives to smoking, which some people claim can help people to quit the habit and reduce the harm caused by smoking.

What did the study look at?

This study used an online survey of 7,000 adults in Korea to ask about their use of different smoking and tobacco products and their attempts at quitting the habit.

What do the results show?

The results found that around 700 (1 in 10) of those surveyed were current users of heated tobacco products. Most people who used heated tobacco products also used e-cigarettes and/or smoked cigarettes.

Among people who had smoked cigarettes at some stage in their life, those who also used heated tobacco products and e-cigarettes were more likely to have attempted to quit smoking than those who only smoked cigarettes.

However, despite this group having more attempts at quitting, they were also less likely to be able to successfully quit the habit and stop using cigarettes altogether.

Why is this important?

There is an on-going debate about the use of heated-tobacco products and whether they can be used as a tool to help people quit smoking cigarettes. This study adds new evidence to this debate and can be used to help shape future tobacco control policies.

Title: Heated tobacco product use and its relationship to quitting combustible cigarettes in Korean adults

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0251243

Learn more about heat-not-burn and e-cigarettes in our factsheet: https://europeanlung.org/en/information-hub/factsheets/e-cigarettes-heat-not-burn-and-smokeless-tobacco-products/