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E-cigarettes have become a popular tool for people looking to give up their smoking habit,&nbsp;but are they really the best way to help smokers overcome addiction?&nbsp;A study published today in&nbsp;The New England Journal of Medicine&nbsp;aimed to answer this question by seeing how effective different interventions are in promoting cessation of smoking.&nbsp;&nbsp;Using 6,006 subjects, researchers randomly assigned them to one of five groups. The&nbsp;usual care group received&nbsp;both motivational texts and&nbsp;information&nbsp;about&nbsp;the benefits associated with quitting&nbsp;cigarette use. Each of the other four groups received usual care in addition to one of the following: free cessation aids (nicotine replacement therapy with e-cigarettes if therapy failed), free e-cigarettes,&nbsp;free cessation aids with a $600 reward for continued cessation of smoking,&nbsp;or free cessation aids with $600 in redeemable funds (money removed if&nbsp;sequential&nbsp;cessation markers were not hit).&nbsp;The primary outcome was defined to be maintained cessation of smoking 6 months after the&nbsp;date of&nbsp;initial termination.&nbsp;Rates of sustained abstinence from smoking&nbsp;after&nbsp;6 months&nbsp;were found to be 0.1% in the usual care group, 0.5% in the free cessation aids group, 1.0% in the free e-cigarettes group, 2.0% in the free cessation plus rewards group, and 2.9% in the redeemable fund group.&nbsp;Regarding rates of sustained abstinence,&nbsp;redeemable deposits (P&lt;0.001) were found to be more effective than free cessation aids (P=0.006), and free e-cigarettes (P=0.008). Free cigarettes were not found to be more effective than&nbsp;usual care&nbsp;(P=0.20), or free cessation aids (P=0.43).&nbsp;&nbsp;Overall, these results showed&nbsp;that the addition of financial incentive to free cessation aids gave rise to higher sustained cessation rates, and that addition of free cessation aids or e-cigarettes to usual care did not provide a significant benefit.&nbsp;This calls into question the efficacy of e-cigarettes as a means of quitting smoking, and perhaps indicates a need for more reward-based intervention in the cessation of smoking.&nbsp;&nbsp;Source: NEJM&nbsp;

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