--- title: E-Cigarettes as Effective as Nicotine Patches in Smoking Cessation description: More studies are helping regulators to decide what role e-cigarettes could play in anti-smoking efforts. 7135583 canonical: https://time.com/archive/7135583/e-cigarettes-as-effective-as-nicotine-patches-in-smoking-cessation/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-09-07T22:01:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-16T09:54:13.981Z article:section: Health og:title: E-Cigarettes as Effective as Nicotine Patches in Smoking Cessation og:description: More studies are helping regulators to decide what role e-cigarettes could play in anti-smoking efforts. 7135583 og:url: https://time.com/archive/7135583/e-cigarettes-as-effective-as-nicotine-patches-in-smoking-cessation/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9cf177218a98c8ec/698a927c47ca3862483c38a5/147880133-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4698 og:image:height: 2643 og:image:alt: An Electronic Cigarette Is An Anti Smoking Health Device og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: E-Cigarettes as Effective as Nicotine Patches in Smoking Cessation twitter:description: More studies are helping regulators to decide what role e-cigarettes could play in anti-smoking efforts. 7135583 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9cf177218a98c8ec/698a927c47ca3862483c38a5/147880133-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Health](/section/health/) # E-Cigarettes as Effective as Nicotine Patches in Smoking Cessation > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. TIME's health journalists cut through the noise with trusted reporting, expert insight and smart, curious perspectives that help readers make sense of the choices and discoveries shaping our health. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Sep 7, 2013 10:01 PM UTC  KNUTSFORD, UNITED KINGDOM - JULY 05: In this photo illustration a woman smokes an electronic cigarette on July 5, 2012 in Knutsford, United Kingdom. Electronic cigarettes are the latest health device for smokers hoping to quit nicotine addiction. Earlier today a major security operation took place in Staffordshire, England, after a passenger on a coach used an electronic cigarette which was mistaken for something more sinister and a full scale security alert was instigated. The 48 passengers were later allowed to carry on with their journey. (Photo illustration by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) KNUTSFORD, UNITED KINGDOM - JULY 05: In this photo illustration a woman smokes an electronic cigarette on July 5, 2012 in Knutsford, United Kingdom. Electronic cigarettes are the latest health device for smokers hoping to quit nicotine addiction. Earlier today a major security operation took place in Staffordshire, England, after a passenger on a coach used an electronic cigarette which was mistaken for something more sinister and a full scale security alert was instigated. The 48 passengers were later allowed to carry on with their journey. (Photo illustration by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) Getty Images—2012 Getty Images by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Sep 7, 2013 10:01 PM UTC More studies are helping regulators to decide what role e-cigarettes could play in anti-smoking efforts. more The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is currently evaluating the safety of e-cigarettes, which are battery-powered versions of cigarettes that can contain varying amounts of nicotine but don’t expose users to the potentially harmful byproducts of tobacco smoke such as tar and carbon monoxide. Instead, they inhale nicotine vapors, which the device’s advocates say is safer than smoking conventional cigarettes, and makes e-cigarettes a viable way to kick the habit as well. And the latest study on e-cigarettes, published in the journal _Lancet_, supports that claim. In the first clinical trial comparing e-cigarettes and nicotine patches in helping people to quit smoking, both methods proved equally successful. After a 13-week smoking cessation program, similar numbers of smokers who used e-cigarettes remained smoke-free after six months as used nicotine patches. (**MORE:** [E-Cigarettes Are Finding New Users in Teens](http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/05/e-cigarettes-finding-new-users-in-teens/)) The researchers, from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, recruited 657 smokers eager to kick the habit. One group received placebo e-cigarettes with no nicotine, another group received a 13-week supply of e-cigarettes with 16 mg of nicotine and the third was provided with a 13-week supply of nicotine patches. Among the e-cigarette smokers, 7.8% had quit by the end of the study, while 5.8% of those using the patch had stopped lighting up, a difference that wasn’t statistically significant, meaning that the two interventions had essentially the same impact. These results support other data suggesting that e-cigarettes can help smokers to quit; earlier this year, a study published in the journal _PLOS ONE_ found that those using e-cigarettes were more likely to quit smoking, even if they didn’t want to. Italian researchers from the University of Catania set out to test whether using e-cigarettes would help smokers cut back on their smoking over a year, but by the end of the study, 13% of the group with the highest dose of nicotine in their e-cigarettes (7.2 mg) were no longer lighting up. (**MORE:** [Doctors Asked to Counsel Teens About the Dangers of Smoking](http://healthland.time.com/2013/08/26/doctors-asked-to-counsel-teens-about-the-dangers-of-smoking/)) The FDA is likely to consider these studies, among others, as it considers what to do about e-cigarettes. While the agency currently doesn’t regulate them, it intends to do so soon, and determine what role, if any, the devices can play in smoking cessation. One strategy that Mitch Zeller, the FDA’s director of the Center for Tobacco Products may consider in assessing tobacco products involves the so-called continuum of risk, which takes into account that there is a spectrum of tobacco products that exposes consumers to varying amounts of nicotine, and therefore varying levels of health risks. On one end live the traditional cigarettes, and on the other are products like nicotine patches and lozenges, which are designed to wean smokers of their dependence on nicotine. E-cigarettes may fall somewhere in between, since they can help smokers to quit, as the latest evidence shows, but may also serve as an introduction to cigarettes for younger smokers. A recent [study](http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/05/e-cigarettes-finding-new-users-in-teens/) showed that in the U.S., for example, e-cigarette use has doubled among high schoolers and middle schoolers, and that 76% of e-cigarette users also smoked conventional cigarettes. (**MORE:** [Can Electronic Cigarettes Challenge Big Tobacco?](http://business.time.com/2013/01/08/can-electronic-cigarettes-challenge-big-tobacco/)) Still, in a paper Zeller [authored](http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/22/suppl%5F1/i40.full) in the journal _Tobacco Control,_ he argued that accepting a sliding scale of risk may be the most practical way to curb smoking rates, rather than regulating tobacco products from an all-or-none perspective. “Anyone who would ponder the endgame must acknowledge that the continuum of risk exists and pursue strategies that are designed to drive consumers from the most deadly and dangerous to the least harmful forms of nicotine delivery,” he wrote. He also admits that this reflects an evolution in this thinking, and, some public experts hope, in that of the FDA, which has long been criticized for not being an effective advocate for public health against the tobacco industry. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7135583/e-cigarettes-as-effective-as-nicotine-patches-in-smoking-cessation/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7135583/e-cigarettes-as-effective-as-nicotine-patches-in-smoking-cessation/"},"headline":"E-Cigarettes as Effective as Nicotine Patches in Smoking Cessation","datePublished":"2013-09-07T22:01:56.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T09:54:13.981Z","description":"More studies are helping regulators to decide what role e-cigarettes could play in anti-smoking efforts. 7135583","url":"https://time.com/archive/7135583/e-cigarettes-as-effective-as-nicotine-patches-in-smoking-cessation/","keywords":["tobacco","E-Cigarettes","Nicotine"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9cf177218a98c8ec/698a927c47ca3862483c38a5/147880133-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9cf177218a98c8ec/698a927c47ca3862483c38a5/147880133-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"An Electronic Cigarette Is An Anti Smoking Health Device","caption":"An Electronic Cigarette Is An Anti Smoking Health Device","creditText":"Getty Images—2012 Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7135583/e-cigarettes-as-effective-as-nicotine-patches-in-smoking-cessation/","name":"E-Cigarettes as Effective as Nicotine Patches in Smoking Cessation"}}]}] ```