From: BigThink
by Orion Jones
A new analysis of thirteen scientific trials suggests that electronic cigarettes can help smokers reduce their amount of nicotine intake and even quit smoking all together.
E-cigarettes have only been in production since 2006, making the available scientific evidence about their effects still quite sparse, yet they appear less harmful than traditional cigarettes. And if they can help people who want to quit smoking, all the better.
When smoking traditional cigarettes made of cut tobacco leaves, paper, and a host of additives, a toxic chemical melange is created when these ingredients are burned and inhaled. But e-cigarettes work by mixing nicotine with glycerine and propylene glycol, two relatively benign chemicals, then heating the chemicals into a vapor that is inhaled.
Published by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international medical research organization, the review found that about nine percent of people using electronic cigarettes managed to abstain from smoking for six months, against four percent of those using the placebos.