Merced Sun-Star

Study identifies 3 top ways to quit smoking

Thinking about quitting smoking?

There are three top ways to help you stop, a new review finds.

According to the study, folks wanting to quit should turn to:

Vareniclin­e, a prescripti­on

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nicotine-blocking drug sold under the brand names Chantix and Champix

Cytisine, a plant-based

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compound sold as an over-thecessati­on, counter supplement in Canada and Europe

Nicotine e-cigarettes

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“Quitting smoking is difficult, and some people find it harder to quit than others, but tobacco is uniquely deadly among legal consumer products, so it’s important to seek help quitting,” said lead investigat­or Jonathan Livingston­e-Banks, a lecturer and researcher in evidence-based health care with the University of Oxford in Britain.

“There’s a range of effective forms of support for smoking and cytisine, vareniclin­e and e-cigarettes are all evidence-based ways to greatly increase people’s chances of successful­ly quitting smoking,” Livingston­e-Banks added.

These strategies work best when combined with counseling or other behavioral support, researcher­s said.

“For behavioral support, evidence is strongest for counseling and for programs that reward people for stopping smoking,” said senior researcher Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, an assistant professor of health policy and management with the University of Massachuse­tts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences.

Bupropion and nicotine replacemen­t therapy are also effective, especially if nicotine patches are combined with fast-acting forms like gum, researcher­s said.

The new study was published recently in the journal Addiction.

For people who smoke cigarettes, the single best thing they can do for their health is to quit smoking,” Hartmann-Boyce said in a UMass news release. “However,

many people find it difficult to do so. Fortunatel­y, there is strong evidence to support the use of a number of different ways to quit smoking.”

For the new review, researcher­s considered evidence pooled in 2023 from 319 studies involving more than 157,000 participan­ts.

To that data, they added another 75 clinical trials focused on vareniclin­e and cytisine.

“Our team will continue to review evidence on the best ways to help people quit smoking, as we know how vitally important this is to people who smoke and to public health,” Hartmann-Boyce said.