# Study confirms Ecigs flavouring decreases smoking rates



## Alex (21/9/16)

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*Study confirms Ecigs flavouring decreases smoking rates*
A study carried out in Connecticut shows that flavourings, especially menthol, are factors that may affect smoking behaviour and help smokers switch to vaping.

By
Jérôme Harlay
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September 20, 2016
Flavours, from the experience of many vapers and former smokers, are what made the difference when switching to vaping. The wide diversity of fragrances (about 8,000 according to recent projections) is part of the success of the e-cigarette, pretend vaping advocates. But this opinion is nearly ignored by those who regulate this sector.

However, from a legislative point of view, there is not better way than a scientific publication to support such argument. And this is what Mark Litt, Valerie Duffy and Cheryl Oncken probably thought when they conceived their study to examine the *influence of flavouring on the smoking and vaping behaviour* of smokers asked to adopt e-cigarettes.

The study conducted by the researchers at the University of Connecticut shows that e-cigarette flavourings can *moderate vaping*. The same experiment also shows that e-cigarette plays an important role in *decreasing smoking* rates.

Currently, e-cigarette flavourings are being scrutinized since many regulators believe they catch up the youngest and drag them to nicotine addiction with e-cigarettes then with smoking tobacco. A wide variety of flavours as large as 8,000 are available for purchase on websites and in vape shops. Hence, flavourings are first considered as a selling argument for ENDS. Besides controversial toxicity, this study demonstrates that flavourings also have a role to play in smoking cessation.





The smokers participating in the study were offered to vape 18 mg/mL nicotine base only, tobacco, menthol, cherry and chocolate flavourings with an Ego e-cigarette. Two different phases occurred; the first one was designed for participant to test the flavors and select their preferred one.

The second phase addressed smokers’ behavioural responses at home.The participants were then asked to self monitor their cigarette use daily for 1 week and to substitute e-cigarettes in place of their regular cigarettes for a period of 6 weeks.

The authors defined a e-cigarette episode as about 15 consecutive puffs or a period lasting about 10 min. Regular measurements of carbon monoxyde (CO), a toxicant gas linked to the inhalation were also carried out on individuals.




The effects of specific flavours on cigarette use and e-cigarette use were intriguing: Vaping vs smoking patterns significantly evolved during the 6 weeks of survey. A decrease of smoking was concomitant with an increase of vaping and a reduction of the CO level.

The greater reduction in smoking was associated to vaping menthol while the greater success of vaping was found with the tobacco flavor. When investigated, flavor preference reveals a shared success of menthol (32%), cherry (30%) and tobacco (24%). Only few people love vaping base, chocolate flavor did not receive a lot of interest as well.

The authors notice that:

E-cigarette flavours assigned did help determine the degree to which smokers adopted e-cigarettes;
Menthol-flavoured e-cigarettes were the most successful at suppressing cigarette use;
Smokers assigned the menthol e-cigarette tended to reduce their use of both tobacco products;
Chocolate flavour tended to be the least popular e-cigarette assigned and yielded the lowest drop in cigarette use.
*Menthol, a flavor of controversy*
*Menthol* tends to inhibit metabolism of nicotine, which may help explain why those who smoke menthol cigarettes tend to smoke fewer cigarettes per day. Menthol was also more recently reported to directly attenuates the activation of the nicotinic-acetylcholine system by nicotine and contribute to an overall decrease of nicotine uptake.

It happens, during such trials, that smokers abandon smoking if favor of the e-cigarette. Only one participant has cut with smoking over the 88 people involved in the study. By assigning more flavors per participant, by offering higher nicotine strength and by selecting random smokers instead of smokers who do not plan to quit smoking, the authors believe they could have led more participants to complete cessation, which was not the initial aim of the study. They recall that this is the first study to examine the role of flavours per se on smoking and vaping patterns of smokers adopting e-cigarettes.

The implications of this study are multiple. Many countries are about to ban flavoured e-liquids and especially menthol whose use in combustible cigarette is also compromised on the short term. With the comprehensible message that flavors play a crucial role in decreasing smoking, this study will hopefully contribute to develop the current scientific effort in order to make the use of flavourings safer in e-cigarettes.

_Litt MD., Duffy V., Oncken C., 2016. Cigarette smoking and electronic cigarette vaping patterns as a function of e-cigarette flavourings. Tobacco Control, tobaccocontrol-2016

source: http://www.vapingpost.com/2016/09/20/study-confirms-ecigs-flavouring-decreases-smoking-rates/_

Reactions: Like 7 | Winner 1


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## Darryn Du Plessis (21/9/16)

People SMOKE because they want smoke - vape clouds are just that.. CLOUDS  - inspiration to not touch a cigarette again and a big momentum to the flavour you actually want on your lips, pallette and a cloud of that flavour to explode on  
for people quitting  take them to a Shop where they can try every flavour imaginable on their own senses to give them the direction they want to go in

Reactions: Like 1


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## RichJB (21/9/16)

Interesting study and one that has been on my mind too - what role do flavours play in how much we vape? I think, however, that the study is just a starting point and would need a lot more work. For starters, the study only had smokers vaping one flavour for the test period. How accurately does that represent real world conditions? Almost every vaper I know vapes a range of flavours, not just menthol or cherry or tobacco or chocolate. Heck, most vapers will vape all four of those over a period, and much more besides.

Another aspect I'd like to see researched is why smokers generally stick with one brand but vapers swap and switch between flavours constantly. Why is it that we cannot seem to find the same long-term satisfaction from a juice that we did from a brand of cigarette? I smoked Chesterfield for decades and I never got sick of it or felt that I wanted something else. Sure, you will get guys like Oom Rob who likes his XXX mainly. But I suspect he would be in the minority. Most vapers I know can't vape anything for longer than a week without swapping to something different.

Is it the sheer range of flavours available? If we only had six vaping flavours available instead of 9 573, would we be more likely to just pick one flavour and stick with it? Or would we rotate among the six?

Incidentally, HIC is very upset with this study. He says that if they'd added Acetyl Pyrazine, used better quality nic and vaped at lower wattages, more people would have liked the chocolate. But only if it was FA.

Reactions: Like 1


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## boxerulez (21/9/16)

RichJB said:


> Is it the sheer range of flavours available? If we only had six vaping flavours available instead of 9 573, would we be more likely to just pick one flavour and stick with it? Or would we rotate among the six?



I believe if that was the case, we would pick up the chesterfields again.


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## Darryn Du Plessis (21/9/16)

RichJB said:


> Interesting study and one that has been on my mind too - what role do flavours play in how much we vape? I think, however, that the study is just a starting point and would need a lot more work. For starters, the study only had smokers vaping one flavour for the test period. How accurately does that represent real world conditions? Almost every vaper I know vapes a range of flavours, not just menthol or cherry or tobacco or chocolate. Heck, most vapers will vape all four of those over a period, and much more besides.
> 
> Another aspect I'd like to see researched is why smokers generally stick with one brand but vapers swap and switch between flavours constantly. Why is it that we cannot seem to find the same long-term satisfaction from a juice that we did from a brand of cigarette? I smoked Chesterfield for decades and I never got sick of it or felt that I wanted something else. Sure, you will get guys like Oom Rob who likes his XXX mainly. But I suspect he would be in the minority. Most vapers I know can't vape anything for longer than a week without swapping to something different.
> 
> ...


 
Your study and diet, will be similar to food, as it is food we're smoking lol - 

Do you eat one type of food your whole life and hope to keep living? no you try, and mix variations of all the kinds available.
Likewise with vapour liquids, tanks, mods, it's a very fun new phase of smoking 

Cleaner, can be to your very own preference, it's so much better than smoking- as it tastes like something you actually want in your mouth, similar satisfaction to eating food, but vaping for flavour and clouds.

Reactions: Like 1


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## RichJB (21/9/16)

Vaping isn't eating, though. The reason we want to eat many foodstuffs for as varied a diet as possible is that food fuels us. So the greater the range of nutrients that you take in, the better off you will be. Vaping does not provide us with nutrients, neither does smoking. This is possibly why there is no natural urge to "vary our diet" with tobacco products - there is no benefit in doing so. One type of tobacco produces much the same nicotine as another. We don't need fifteen different types of tobacco flavour to survive. I'm speaking for myself here, Andre's and GregF's mileage may vary. 

You may, however, be right that our natural food instincts cause us to get tired of juice flavours quickly. If we ate banana dessert every evening, we'd soon tire of it. Which is the body's way of telling us "I'm getting enough of the nutrients that bananas provide, now give me something else that I'm not getting enough of". Is it possible that vaping is 'fooling' our natural systems and creating the same sort of reaction?

I remember reading years ago that you shouldn't chew bubble gum because the chewing action causes the stomach to think that food is coming down the hatch. So it releases acids to help digest the food. Then, when no food arrives, the acids start eating the stomach lining. I don't know how true that is but it made sense to me at the time. Could vaping be causing similar reactions in the body? If you took a vaper who was severely low on Vitamin C and gave him a fresh juicy naartjie vape, could it fool his body into thinking it was getting Vit C?

I think there is still a ton of research to be done on these issues. It's good that they're finally getting around to it.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Darryn Du Plessis (21/9/16)

RichJB said:


> You may, however, be right that our natural food instincts cause us to get tired of juice flavours quickly. If we ate banana dessert every evening, we'd soon tire of it. Which is the body's way of telling us "I'm getting enough of the nutrients that bananas provide, now give me something else that I'm not getting enough of". Is it possible that vaping is 'fooling' our natural systems and creating the same sort of reaction?
> 
> I remember reading years ago that you shouldn't chew bubble gum because the chewing action causes the stomach to think that food is coming down the hatch. So it releases acids to help digest the food. Then, when no food arrives, the acids start eating the stomach lining. I don't know how true that is but it made sense to me at the time. Could vaping be causing similar reactions in the body? If you took a vaper who was severely low on Vitamin C and gave him a fresh juicy naartjie vape, could it fool his body into thinking it was getting Vit C?
> 
> I think there is still a ton of research to be done on these issues. It's good that they're finally getting around to it.



Too many flavors, would you only try 6 and be satisfied with what you have? There are way too many options available for us to limit us to a little amount -availability of flavours will be a factor.

Vaping vs. Smoking though - vaping flavours are difficult to choose based on price and point of taste/ appearance i the sale. - Cigarettes -- usually people continue with their favourites, because nothing else fulfills the high of that specific cig - tar & 5000+ chemicals from that self-burning stick vs a vape you control is amazing. Cig smokers stick to their brand because they don't think there is better than what they already like.
Besides, deciding between bad-tasting smoke for all cigarettes irrelevant of the brand, is not something you ever really want to think of or decide- - When options are finally available for all you want to try because it also tastes like your favourite food-stuffs - it's a different mentality for the ex-traditional smoker. 

This website should publish a book with all the vaping things we think of & discuss :

♥


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## SAVaper (21/9/16)

I don't know. What I do know is that variety is the spice of life and I change regularly. But if there was only a couple to choose from, I would probably still change between them, unless they are all horrible.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## RichJB (21/9/16)

I went through different phases in my vaping journey. When I first started, I was astonished that juices came in flavours other than tobacco. I didn't much fancy the idea of vaping pear or watermelon so I just asked the vape bar oke for tobacco. He gave me VaporFi American Red which was decent. Then I slowly got into the non-tobacco flavours and began really enjoying them. However, when I started DIY, one of the first flavours I got was TFA RY4 Double. I mixed it up, steeped correctly and tried it out expectantly - and almost retched. The memory of the tobacco odour was really nasty for me. So I added some Marshmallow to try and tone it down and sweeten it. This is TFA RY4 too, which is one of the least tobacco-y.

As I continued vaping it, I started liking it more and more, until I was quite sad when the bottle was finished. So I've clearly rediscovered my tolerance for tobacco. I now have FA 7 Leaves and Virginia steeping, both just plain 3% mixes with nothing else. I'll be interested to try them and see what transpires. I can imagine myself heading back towards tobacco again, thus coming full circle in my vaping journey.


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## SAVaper (21/9/16)

RichJB said:


> I went through different phases in my vaping journey. When I first started, I was astonished that juices came in flavours other than tobacco. I didn't much fancy the idea of vaping pear or watermelon so I just asked the vape bar oke for tobacco. He gave me VaporFi American Red which was decent. Then I slowly got into the non-tobacco flavours and began really enjoying them. However, when I started DIY, one of the first flavours I got was TFA RY4 Double. I mixed it up, steeped correctly and tried it out expectantly - and almost retched. The memory of the tobacco odour was really nasty for me. So I added some Marshmallow to try and tone it down and sweeten it. This is TFA RY4 too, which is one of the least tobacco-y.
> 
> As I continued vaping it, I started liking it more and more, until I was quite sad when the bottle was finished. So I've clearly rediscovered my tolerance for tobacco. I now have FA 7 Leaves and Virginia steeping, both just plain 3% mixes with nothing else. I'll be interested to try them and see what transpires. I can imagine myself heading back towards tobacco again, thus coming full circle in my vaping journey.



I still can't stomach any tobacco juices.......

Reactions: Agree 1 | Funny 1


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## Huffapuff (21/9/16)

When it comes to smoking cigarettes one is pretty much the same as the other, some may be more roasted etc but it's not like they're gourmet flavours or anything. And we never smoked for the flavour that's for sure! 

When vaping started there weren't 5k+ flavours - I'm sure most of us ex-smokers just wanted to find a way to quit smoking. The bonus now is that there are so many flavours 

If I could only vape a handful of flavours I'd still vape - my first 6 months of vaping I only had 3 juices coz I couldn't afford more. But I didn't return to smoking.

Heck, if I only had one juice I'd still vape because it sure as hell would taste better than a stinky!


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## Waine (21/9/16)

I enjoy nicotine, always have. Its my only drug of choice. I have tried all nicotine delivery methods: Cigarettes, pipes, cigars, snuff, Snuss, chewing tobacco, (gross!) "Nicorette" chewing gum and nicotine patches. Vaping (with the proper gear) is not only the most effective and satisfying, but the most fun. Vaping is one of my hobbies. There are so many dimensions to vaping. I enjoy tinkering with my equipment so much, that sometimes I feel like a little child with a "Mechano" set at Christmas time.

I just wish more people would "get with the program" and quit the damn cancer sticks. Having said that, vaping is expensive, and the majority of smokers in the world cannot afford one vaporiser, never mind a back up device, or three.

I thank my Creator that I am privileged to be able to afford to vape instead of killing myself slowly with cigarettes.


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