Smoking E-Cigarettes Might Make You Less Likely to Give Up

Many smokers have turned to using e-cigarette devices in an effort to cut down or stop smoking - but a new study, which followed 1,000 smokers for a year, suggests they might be wasting their time.

E-cigarette companies are often keen to hype the devices' health benefits - but in the real world, the gadgets do not seem to help people quit, University of California researchers found.

Smokers who used e-cigarettes were 59% less likely to stop smoking when using the devices - and 49% less likely to cut down.

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The team suggested that the increased dose of nicotine in e-cigarettes was to blame:

'Based on the idea that smokers use e-cigarettes to quit smoking, we hypothesized that smokers who used these products would be more successful in quitting,' said Wael Al-Delaimy, who led the study.

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'But the research revealed the contrary. We need further studies to answer why they cannot quit.

'One hypothesis is that smokers are receiving an increase in nicotine dose by using e-cigarettes.'