{"id":98728,"date":"2025-08-26T16:54:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T16:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/98728\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T16:54:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T16:54:11","slug":"stay-away-from-vaping-to-quit-smoking-canadian-researchers-recommend-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/98728\/","title":{"rendered":"Stay away from vaping to quit smoking, Canadian researchers recommend – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

New guidance in Canada is recommending that vaping<\/a>\u00a0be the last resort for Canadians trying to quit smoking.<\/p>\n

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The recommendations, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal<\/a> by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, lay out new methods to help people reduce and stop smoking<\/a> altogether.<\/p>\n

Doctors are advised to ask their patients if they smoke and then work\u00a0with them to determine a plan to quit.<\/p>\n

The suggested plans include primary care advice, individual or group counselling with a trained cessation counsellor, nicotine replacements like gum or patches, and prescription drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmoking is probably the greatest preventable cause of death and illness in Canada,\u201d said Dr. Eddy Lang, a professor in the University of Calgary\u2019s department of emergency medicine and member of the task force. \u201cSo why not make it a target of one of our guidelines and to help people sort out all of the various options that are available to help you quit smoking?\u201d<\/p>\n

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The task force also strongly recommended against the use of some tools due to \u201cvery uncertain\u201d data or little to no effect on cessation, such as acupuncture, hypnotherapy and electrostimulation.<\/p>\n

According to Statistics Canada, about 12 per cent of Canadians 25 and older say they currently smoke, compared with four per cent of those 15 to 19.<\/p>\n

The most recent Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey showed 31 per cent of smokers 15 years and older have made an attempt to quit within the past year, with about 62 per cent trying to do so without any type of assistance.<\/p>\n

But others used various tools in an attempt to quit, including 39.5 per cent trying to smoke less and 28 per cent switching to e-cigarettes as a method to stop smoking.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that use of e-cigarettes that has doctors concerned.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHow to help teens and young adults quit vaping\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Health agencies like Johns Hopkins Medicine have previously said vaping is less harmful than smoking cigarettes, but it is still advised to avoid them as they\u2019re \u201cstill not safe\u201d and contain thousands of chemicals.<\/p>\n

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The products contain nicotine and heavy metals such as nickel and tin, and their vapour contains similar carcinogens to those in cigarettes.<\/p>\n

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Lang told Global News the presence of those chemicals and the lack of long-term safety data is why the task force recommended e-cigarettes be used as a last resort for quitting.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe don\u2019t know exactly what is going to be the long-term consequences of using nicotine via e-cigarettes for a prolonged period of time,\u201d Lang said. \u201cWe also didn\u2019t want to normalize it. We know it\u2019s quite prominent and we think there\u2019s better things that you can try to quit smoking before having to rely on e-cigarettes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The task force recommends against e-cigarette use except for smokers who haven\u2019t had success with other options or are not willing to try those options. A strong preference to use e-cigarettes should also be taken into account when recommending smoking cessation tools, the task force says.<\/p>\n

Health-care organizations like the Alberta Lung Association say there\u2019s also concern that e-cigarettes are no longer being seen as a cessation tool, pointing to the products being sold with flavours like bubble gum or different types of fruit, something that appeals to youth.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s a reason why flavoured cigarettes are banned and it is the same reason as these flavoured e-cigarettes,\u201d said Jamie Happy, health and motion co-ordinator at the association. \u201cThey tend to be very favoured by youth and then that creates an entire population that is now nicotine dependent.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey, released most recently in 2023, showed that 47.5 per cent of young adults 20 to 24 and 30 per cent of those 15 to 19 say they\u2019ve tried vaping at least once in their lives<\/a>. The survey also showed that of those 15 and older who used a vape in the 30 days before being asked, 78 per cent reported using an e-liquid containing nicotine.<\/p>\n

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A recent analysis by the University of York<\/a>, in partnership with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, found there was \u201cconsistent evidence\u201d that young people who vaped were three times more likely to become smokers, with added links to the use of other substances like marijuana and alcohol. The study also warned of an increased risk of respiratory health issues.<\/p>\n

The researchers analyzed 56 reviews conducted between 2016 and 2024 on the impacts of vaping in teens and adults up to age 24, including reviews conducted in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K.<\/p>\n

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Happy said vaping is becoming a replacement habit.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are replacing one habit with another because it doesn\u2019t address the main issue, which is dependence to nicotine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Lang said the difficulty of quitting smoking is recognized, but the hope is the recommendations will give people a range of options to try to stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know it\u2019s hard to quit, it probably takes more than two or three times, but the health benefits are extraordinary, so that\u2019s worth pursuing,\u201d Lang said.<\/p>\n

\u2014with files from Global News\u2019 Skylar Peters<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New guidance in Canada is recommending that vaping\u00a0be the last resort for Canadians trying to quit smoking. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,57362,84,3378,57361],"class_list":["post-98728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cigarettes","tag-health","tag-smoking","tag-vaping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}