UC San Diego Study: Chantix Doesn't Significantly Help Smokers Quit

Our top story on midday edition. He probably seen the commercials, a longtime soccer says that they were finally able to quit with the help of a new drug called Chantix. There's no doubt this non-nicotine prescription drug has helped some people quit. It's not boosting the number of smokers who quit. That's according to a study led by researchers from UC San Diego. This finding is just one of a series of surprising results about how strong and competition smoking addiction can be. Less than 20% of Americans continue to smoke but that number is not going down quickly. The smoking cessation aids available don't need to be inspired most of those smokers to quit. Joining me, Wael Al-Delaimy, epidemiologist, UC San Diego School of Medicine and Jodi McEdward, certified tobacco treatment specialist, Sharp Rees-Stealy. Welcome. UC San Diego researchers just released this study on the effectiveness of Chantix, how did it actually help smokers quit? The process is not within my experience of the pharmacological aspect. The nicotine receptors are the ones in the brain that make people addicted. Any way of blocking these receptors so people become less addicted hopes people quit. The findings of Chantix is not a big surprise for me as a population epidemiologist. We don't do it accidental studies, -- excremental studies. We deal with the population. These two bits are done in exponential settings. Why is this different? In experimental settings you see more Corporation and people are monitoring us of the quit rates are higher. In population studies, this is observation. This is the real time, related situation. Consistently for the last many years in our California white tobacco surveys, we found cessation aids and treatments are not the main reason for people quitting. When you ask people what was the method you used to quit, 70% consistently say it was on their own without help. That's an important thing to learn from and that has not been the focus of the pharmaceutical agency industry is that this is a magic bullet, but there is no magic bullet. The study found Chantix helped people for three months. Then their rates of taking up smoking again or their success rates were just about the same as for people who use the drug. For long term cessation, it didn't really do that much. That's of the major problem, relapse. Many people use anything whether it's a patch or drug or other cessation aids. They help people if they are used at the right time and perspective. The challenges continuing to quit. That's because of the addictive power of nicotine as well as the behavioral influence. It's not just the nicotine by itself, but the way smoking and habit that has become part of the lifestyle of the person is very difficult to break down. One of the most surprising parts of the study is this supposedly breakthrough drug did not significantly increase the number of smokers who tried to quit. That's a surprising result. The trying to quit is different from people who are going to commit and continue to quit. We ask a question, have you tried to do a quit attempt. The majority of smokers to a quit attempt that could last one or two days or more. Having a prolonged quitting which in most terms is six or seven months, that's really the success of a certain treatment. Jodi, does that surprise you because there was a lot of talk about this particular job and there have been a lot of talk about other smoking cessation aids, most of which are nicotine-based. They had not been seen to significantly raise the number of people who are trying to quit. It's not that it's a surprise, we watched this dynamic environment of people trying to quit and how in programs like second breath, this is a bridge. It's meant to work on the arena of the physical symptoms of nicotine as they are starting to a draw and go to recovery. It's also important to pay attention to the other two areas that tend to support and reinforce a return tobacco. Also the powerful memories associated with the habits and behavior. Dealing with just one arena and not looking at the other two will make it more difficult to sustain a quit over their lifetime. Cigarette smoking continues to decline in the United States. It's a declining slowly. It's been hovering around the 20% mark for 10 years. Have we reached a chance -- intransigent population of smoker? Suspect that we reached a place in California where we had bounced up a little bit. Some information published in June shows we are around 15% for men and a little under for women. When you tease it out by ethnicity, people of color have a higher use than not. We're also talking about a generational opinion of what tobacco is. As a direct result, it's a very social thing of the that is used frequently or not. Goes on automatic and they don't pay attention how a social habit can become dependence. Researchers have discovered a significant group of smokers who don't identify as smokers. Going back to the other question, we do the surveys a prevalence of smoking that are given to the Department of public health. We have been seeing a plateau where we reached 11% in the last survey we did. We are a little less but the problem is, more success of quitting is associated with the funding for tobacco control grams which has not increased. It is actually dwindling. That has dark relationship to the smoking prevalence as well as the tobacco industry boost in different ways of advertisements and 2-for-1 and so on. This is really them working and there has not been tax on cigarettes. Going to your question on those who don't identify, this is part of the social norm that is developing in California which is beginning to be undermined indirectly through ecigarettes. It is become not acceptable for people to smoke. It is more or less a social stigma for people. It has reflected more or less into the survey. People are denying their smokers and we found especially if they are male and older, that is even more pronounced. All percent of smokers in California who smoke say they do not go We asked them to questions, how much do you smoke, and do you consider yourself a smoker. That's a really interesting phenomena. The social norm has moved so far it's against the norm to smoke. It we're not seeing that reciprocal decrease in prevalence as we would expect. If someone uses cigarettes in a social setting on a weekend, and doesn't smoke the rest of the week, is that person a smoker? Yes. They are a tobacco user. It's a subtle movement to smokeless. It speaks to how a very repetitive behavior sneaks into the unconscious so they aren't even aware of what they are doing. Are not aware there smoking five cigarettes in the space of an hour. Until we work in our behavioral change programs and a look at ways they can put a different habit in place to help the way to help those receptors low dopamine which is the chemical of well-being. When someone comes to you for help, how to assess that person, is at the length of time they had been smoking, is that the amount they do? How do you figure out how you will be able to help him? It starts with what they want to do. They are individuals so they have to reflect their habits their cultural experience etc. We do an addiction score to see how much nicotine they are using to go to the dosing within the first 30 minutes of getting up. Are they smoking are using tobacco with their ill or in bed? That in conjunction with their habits and behaviors all start to help them identify with a need to start focusing their energies. To be have a physical dependence or is it more socially driven? Or is it just an evocative memory with a certain ritual or family member that they sit down and always use tobacco in that situation but don't realize it. You ever recommend just heading down? Yes. Cutting down and fading are to expensive useful tools anyone can use at any time. What about ecigarettes? There's been a lot of hype about it. That is the magic bullet that will save the world of smokers by making them switch. This type was mostly driven by industry and was not evidence-based. It's a recent phenomenon, it's taking beyond expectation. We as scientists wait and are cautious and have been through this right before for the Industry says it slow nicotine. It will solve a problem. Turns out to be more addicted. We're waiting for the evidence and the evidence is beginning to creep and gradually as it is not what it was supposed to be. In my study, we found in a cohort of smokers, those who have used ecigarettes over period of a year were significantly less likely to quit compared to those who never used. This is the beginning of saying is it's helping people? On an individual basis, yes. We are looking for the large evidence. This most recent study published yesterday actually is providing the worst nightmare we have been fearing about these ecigarettes. The young teens are trying its are significantly more likely to use the combustion cigarettes afterwards. This is becoming the gateway we always feared that these ecigarettes are changing the social norm where teens became not interested in cigarette smoke anymore because of -- now it's coming from the back door and saying these ecigarettes are healthy, once they get used to the nicotine, they switch to combustion cigarettes. I would caution against propagating this. Looking at this as you do, what is the most of active thing that society has done in order to curb the number of smokers? I can say with reasonable confidence and experience of California which is the leader worldwide, and proud of being in California is that smoking ban is the single most important, that has been shown by evidence over and over including our studies that when you have smoking bans, it doesn't just protect the non-smokers, it assists smokers in terms of quitting. In our study, it has shown that people who have home bans and perceive there are more smoking bans in their city are more likely to quit. My final question, if someone was to learn about the latest aids in quitting, where should they go? They can contact us, we have lots of ways to help them learn. There are lots of ways to quit. They can contact one 800 no butts. All three are really credible resources. It's about fostering hope, you can quit, don't stop being a quitter, learn from your quitting attempts. Thank you.