Tobacco Cessation - Science topic

Adriana,

This response is quite a while after your initial post, however the topic is still applicable, especially in areas of the world still struggling mightily.

Our publication attempted to tackle the question you had above. Feel free to reach out if you have any specific questions.

Thank you alot Dr. Kurtulus, we tried to contact with you by linkedin, any way if you can send me your email for more details

My email address is: sameroshka@hotmail.com

Dear Virginia

The answer to your question is "No". But I must admit there are no studies that have investigated your question because it is somewhat counterintuitive. Waterpipes combined a boring process of charcoal with the heating of tobacco with a number of additives and the result is an inhaled mixture that contains many more toxic substances than smoke from tobacco cigarettes. Both include nicotine, the main addictive substance in tobacco addiction. 

Many people think that water pipe smoking is less harmful because the smoke is "filtered" through water. The main effect of the water is the cooling and humidification of the inhaled smoke. The other aspect which may suggest it may be a method to quit is that it is used less frequently and mostly in a social context. But real nicotine addicts will hardly be able to reduce nicotine consumption by purely changing to conventional water pipe use.

Regards

Macé

Hello,

I think you could try contacting Icek Ajzen (who has realized research gate). Your own website is http://people.umass.edu/aizen/

He is the author of the theory of planned behavior and may help in your question.

Daily brief vigorous physical exercise must be included.  Even 10 to 15 minutes daily will go a long way to help quit smoking by adlescents and young adults

Hi Carla thank you very much. They are very interesting. I've never seen this method before and it seems that they are very easy to use too even with saliva.

Help please !!

There are a great many validated randomized placebo control trials looking at effective interventions for tobacco dependence. I suggest that you look at Cochrane Database for Reviews.There is little to no evidence that acupuncture has greater than a placebo effect. Long term (greater than 1 year) serially biochemically  validated abstinence is the "gold standard" for abstinence efficacy. Having said that, a good randomized control trial of any intervention ( alternative--"herbals" etc) are the corner stone of advancement ( see where Cytisine became Varenicline) so I strongly recommend good trials of these substances.

Maybe a good strategy is to  encourage smokers you know  who have developed  lung cancer to sue the tobacco  companies?  Such actions certainly  create awareness about the grubby nature of the industry and the danger  of their products. 

A Florida jury has fined the Reynolds Tobacco Co. US$23.6 for punitive damages in a lawsuit filed by the widow of a smoker who died of lung cancer in 1996.

The case is one of those filed in Florida after the state Supreme Court in 2006 threw out a US$145 billion class action verdict. That ruling also said smokers and their families need only prove addiction and that smoking caused their illnesses or deaths.

In 2013, Florida’s highest court re-approved that decision, which made it easier for sick smokers or their survivors to pursue lawsuits against tobacco companies without having to prove to the court again that Big Tobacco knowingly sold dangerous products and lied about the hazards of cigarette smoking.

As expected the Reynolds senior management grizzled about the verdict.

Heidhy:

The original MRSS scale, in English, was provided to fellow professionals by by Dr. Ivan Berlin, of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Pitié-Salpêtrière (Paris). His current email contact is:

And he is also a ResearchGate member so you may also be able to contact him directly through is profile contact:

In addition, José Antônio Baddini Martinez at University of São Paulo (at Ribeirão Preto School of Medicine, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil), worked with an original English version (from Dr. Berlin), translated in his study into Portuguese, so he may also be able to provide the English copy; his email contact is:

jabmarti@fmrp.usp.br

Finally, an English translation of the 30 MRSS questions can be obtained at:

This new July 31, 2013 U.S. Gallup poll may be of interest to you, Dipesh. It looks at successful recovery from the the ex-smoker's perspective. It does so by asking the open-ended question, "Trying to be as specific as possible, what strategies or methods for quitting smoking were most effective for you?" While nearly half credit cold turkey, another 25 percent or so provide responses that fall within the historic yet evolving definition of "cold turkey," abrupt and complete drug cessation, without resort to cessation products or procedures.

Link to Gallup article: http://www.gallup.com/poll/163763/smokers-quit-tried-multiple-times.aspx

Link to extracted Gallup table showing effective strategies: http://whyquit.com/studies/Gallup_Poll_July_2013.html

GSK, Pfizer and J&J would love for you to build your program around approved quitting products, GSK has spent billions over the past 39 years marketing and using its influence to make Nicorette a cornerstone of U.S. cessation policy yet, Yet, according to this poll only 1 percent of successful quitters credit nicotine gum for their success. I'm left wondering the percentage of that 1 percent who were still hooked on the cure, and whether any smoker has ever arrested their brain's dependence upon nicotine by continuing to replace it.

"Group pharma think" will encourage you to recommend costly approved products having 8-12 week treatment periods before product use ends and your program's participants attempt to adjust to natural brain dopamine pathway stimulation. The beauty of abrupt cessation education, counseling and support programs is that within 72 hours of ending use, participants both inhabit nicotine-free bodies and move beyond peak withdrawal.

Effective abrupt cessation programs provide intense up-front education and support during those first 3 critical days, keeping every participant on the exact same recovery page (ending all use at the first session). Joel Spitzer's 13 day programs always started on a Tuesday, with the first two-hour group session running a bit long. Participants returned for additional 2 hour sessions on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and Monday, with graduation the following Monday (day 13). It allowed them to move beyond peak withdrawal prior to the weekend, with greater likelihood of alcohol use. It also forces almost immediate extinction of work related use cues,

Providing telephone support between sessions, with program content as presented in Joel's Library (http://whyquit.com/joel/) , at a very minimum you should expect at least 50 percent of participants to remain 100 percent nicotine free and graduate on day 13. Six month continuous cessation rates (not one puff) should never fall below 30 percent. If your budget allows, Joel discovered that regular follow-up reinforcement letters mailed after graduation, with periodic follow-up telephone calls, can substantially enhance six-month cessation rates (50% is not unusual, again, depending on the quality and intensity of follow-up). This link is to the collection of follow-up letters shared by Joel: http://whyquit.com/joel/#articles Again, if a not-for-profit program you're free to use and share them.

A few lessons I learned the hard way. If any participant relapses, as cold as this sounds, they cannot be permitted to remain in the group, but can attend a future group. Allowing them back will undercut the "same page" recovery and healing dynamics, as the group's focus will turn to the perpetual withdrawal and still complaining user. Also, no breaks during sessions, especially the first. And don't forget to collect all cigarettes at the end of the first session. Make them leave as new ex-smokers.

That first session is the most critical. There, I provide motivation by devoting at least half my time (normally more) to educating them as to how each puff further damages the body, why they need to quit and dependency basics. Accepting that their brain wanting disorder is no different from the wanting felt by other drug addicts greatly simplifies recovery's rules: that one is too many, while thousands never enough.

The second hour is devoted to destruction of false use rationalizations (the biggest being the fraud of "just one" and that nicotine is a stress-buster) and to how to quit. This short video by Spitzer presents his basic tips. At a minimum, each should be briefly reviewed: http://youtu.be/l27zWo7hbcY If desired, you can play any portion of any of Spitzer's nearly 200 videos via a laptop that ties the Internet to a wall projector. YouTube allows you to create links to the exact minute and second of any video that you wish to jump to. You could have pre-established links to every question or concern imaginable. After a few programs the facilitator will likely grow comfortable in sharing the answer themselves.

For example, this link jumps to the 12 minute and 49 second mark of Sptizer's video entitled "Why do smokers smoke?" There, he explains stress induced urine acidification and why smokers falsely believe that smoking is a stress-buster: http://youtu.be/S9AmZiI3rNI?t=12m49s

Dipesh, I sincerely hope you follow through with your dream of helping smokers quit, as the reach of a high quality program pumping out the most dependency recovery savvy ex-smokers your nation has ever seen is no different from the influence of any high quality university.

Again, I'm here and will gladly assist in anyway possible.

Regards,

John