Willpower better than patches for stopping smoking
by William HobsonNew research indicates that smokers desperate to stop shouldn't rely upon medical aids like nicotine replacement products.
Australian researchers at Sydney University who conducted a review of hundreds of studies found that the majority of ex-smokers had successfully stopped smoking without using products like nicotine patches, gums or pills. In addition, the researchers found that those studies which extolled the success rate of nicotine replacement were more than twice as likely to have been funded by drug manufacturers.
The findings suggest that the majority of ex-smokers simply used willpower and mental techniques to stop smoking. Hypnotherapy may be a much more effective aid to overcoming an addiction to smoking than nicotine replacement if this is the case, as it bolsters subconscious commitment and willpower as well as reinforcing desirable behaviour.
The Daily Mail reports that nearly two-thirds to three-quarters of ex-smokers had stopped smoking without pharmaceutical aids. Further doubt was thrown onto the usefulness of nicotine replacement when the study found that only 22% of independent studies on their effectiveness found they had a 'significant benefit' - in contrast with 51% of those funded by drug companies.
Simon Chapman, a professor of public health who contributed to the study, said that giving up smoking had becoming overly 'medicalised' by both government advice and consumer drugs companies. Writing in the journal PLoS Medicine, he reportedly said "Next time you hear the message that various drugs 'double the quit rate', understand that these results come from clinical trials where participants get their drugs free, where they are often called up with reminders and questions, where they develop relationships with the researchers and often want to please them, and where we know that many using the active drug are able to correctly guess they are on it or on the dummy drug"
"Studies of the use of quit drugs in 'real world' settings have not demonstrated that they have such success."
