Is Nicotine Gum an effective method to quit smoking?
In the blogs below Dr Gabriel Symonds explains why there’s something curious about trying to treat nicotine addition with nicotine.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced it has awakened to the interesting idea that the way to help people quit smoking is for them to have a wider range of ‘products’ available in addition to so-called nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). The FDA recognises that NRT (nicotine-containing gum, patches, and lozenges) is of […]
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The 2017 version of Stoptober, as they call it, finished on 28th October. The idea was that if smokers could be encouraged and supported not to smoke for twenty-eight days, they would be ‘five times more likely to quit for good’. Those who signed up received daily messages of the following kind: If you’re using […]
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Since I’m on their mailing list, I’ve once again started receiving notices of the forthcoming 2017 version of the so-called Stoptober anti-smoking effort put out by Public Health England (part of the UK Department of Health). It’s not my intention to mock this campaign. Smoking is a serious problem and anything that helps people to […]
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When I used to work in obstetrics (care of pregnant women) certain routine tests were carried out at each attendance, such as checking the urine and measuring the blood pressure. The reason was that these tests can give early warning of serious problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and then the appropriate action […]
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Gentle reader, bear with me until l come to the bit where I disclose the amazing revelation that recently came upon me. Now, the following is from the website of ASH (Action on Smoking and Health), quoting the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE): While recognizing that quitting smoking is always the […]
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1. Fear Horrible pictures on cigarette packs and emphasizing that smoking causes cancer and heart disease assume people smoke because of ignorance of the consequences. This is not so. Everyone these days knows smoking is harmful to health. Scare tactics have relatively little effect because they don’t take into account the main reason people smoke: […]
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Now here’s something for smokers to ponder. The popular online medical information website, healthline.com, has a feature on ‘The best quit smoking apps’ for 2016.
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Gentle reader, forgive my cynicism, but here we have another example of what might be called ‘The Hard Way to Quit Smoking’, this time from the website of New York City Government. I’ve put selected quotes in italics and added comments that an imaginary smoker might make as he or she reads through the site. […]
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‘Action on Smoking and Health’ (ASH) is a charity set up by the Royal College of Physicians of the UK. It’s supported by those worthy bodies, the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK. ASH’s website informs us that it’s ‘a campaigning public health charity that works to eliminate the harm caused by tobacco.’ So […]
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NRT, let me remind you, means so-called nicotine replacement therapy. Why ‘so-called’? Because nicotine is not a replacement for anything, nor is nicotine being replaced with something, so the name is wrong. It really means cigarette replacement but could equally well and more accurately be called nicotine maintenance therapy (NMT). The idea is that, since […]
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Last year in a little town in New York state I had occasion to visit a friendly neighbourhood pharmacy. There I chanced upon a pamphlet with the inviting title, Let’s Quit Together. In case one might wonder what the ‘quit’ refers to it tells you in the next sentence with a question: ‘Are you ready […]
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Curing someone of smoking is easy, in my experience. However, treating alcoholism is a different matter. It’s not difficult to cure alcoholism – it’s impossible. Let me hasten to add that there are many things that can and should be done to help people with an alcohol problem. In this endeavor it’s important to keep […]
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On opening the cover of the august organ Tobacco Control of November 2015, I was confronted with what at first glance looked like an ad for a packet of washing powder. Closer inspection, however, revealed it’s an illiterate puff for ‘extra strength gum for enhanced craving relief’. In other words, it’s for chewing gum containing 6mg of […]
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If you’re a smoker trying, that is, failing, to stop, what help is out there? The orthodox approach, promulgated by the medical profession, is called, curiously, nicotine replacement therapy. Does this mean nicotine is a replacement for something or is the nicotine going to be replaced with something? What is meant, of course, is cigarette […]
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