Wednesday 6 July 2011

Zyban not a heart risk but ineffective as smoking cessation aid, says study

The story is here. Researchers working with a group of patients with acute coronary syndrome found no significant difference between abstinence rates at one year between patients taking the drug and those on a placebo. They found no significant difference in coronary events between the two groups either.

As we discovered yesterday, even medical attention is turning to the idea that willpower works best:
Varenicline has been shown to modestly increase the chances of a successful quit attempt, compared to unassisted smoking cessation attempts. But overall, the majority of smokers who quit do so without any pharmaceutical assistance at all.

2 comments:

Leg-iron said...

It was never meant to be effective. Like the gum and patches, it was only ever intended to generate profit.

If it worked, the profit would dry up.

The only ones I know who successfully stopped smoking were those who didn't like it any more.

They didn't need any drugs, and they didn't need willpower. They stopped doing it in the same way I stopped trainspotting. It just wasn't fun any more.

Nothing else can ever work.

Belinda said...

It was intended to convince the public it was effective though. And perhaps even the medical profession.