Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation (Cochrane living systematic review)
Cochrane's living review of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation, high-certainty evidence: per 100 people trying to quit smoking, roughly 8-10 succeed using nicotine e-cigarettes, compared with about 6 using nicotine replacement therapy (gums, patches), 7 using non-nicotine e-cigarettes, and 4 with no support. Nicotine e-cigarettes outperformed NRT head-to-head.
Relevance to India: Directly undercuts the most common policy response to a harm-reduction argument in India — 'just use the NRTs that are already legal' — by showing NRT itself is the weaker option of the two in head-to-head quit-rate evidence.
Found during a 2026-09-09 research pass. This is a living Cochrane review,
periodically updated — cite the DOI’s base identifier (CD010216) and
check for a newer .pubN suffix before publishing, since the exact
sub-version located here (pub10) should be reconfirmed against Cochrane’s
site rather than assumed permanent. Plain-language summary on
Cochrane.org.