Let’s Talk About E-Cigarettes

Academics’ Podcast about Vaping Evidence

“Since coming on the market over a decade ago, e-cigarettes have divided opinion,” said the presenters of a new podcast discussing vaping and the researchers studying it. Dr Jamie Hartmann-Boyce and Dr Nicola Lindson submitted a grant application in 2018 to begin the educational venture and it is currently on Episode 3.

The podcast(1) is hosted by Jamie Hartmann-Boyce is the current Director of the Evidence-Based Healthcare DPhil Program, a Fellow at Kellogg College, and an editor for the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group. She says: “I am passionate about engaging the public in our research and have been involved in podcasts, blogging, tv and radio interviews, and song-writing to communicate research results outside of academia.”

Co-host Nicola Lindson is an Associate Lecturer for Cochrane UK, a Chartered Psychologist, an associate editor for the journal Addiction and a research member at Kellogg College. She is currently a co-Principal Investigator on a project carrying out a Living Cochrane systematic review of ‘Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation(²).

Each month, the pair of Oxford researchers will be joined by a special guest are searching for new e-cigarette studies every month. In this podcast, Dr Jamie Hartmann-Boyce and Dr Nicola Lindson talk about what has been found, and how this changes what we know about e-cigarettes.

Last year, they were both published in a meta-analysis of 50 completed studies(³), representing 12,430 participants, that helpfully provides a plain-language summary of the findings to help non-specialists like nicotine consumers.

Episode 1 of the podcast saw Jamie getting excited by the revelation that there were eleven ongoing studies as of December, “so that’s great and suggests we are going to be getting more research in this area to put into our review.”

Special guest Mark Eisenberg, a cardiology specialist, speaks about his randomised clinical trial(⁴) in which he studied the efficacy of vaping. The hosts find the whole area interesting because it’s driven by us ex-smokers now vapers.

January’s episode sees Professor Jasjit Ahluwalia invited to discuss his recent work(⁵) looking at the effect of pod e-cigarettes on carcinogen exposure in African American and Latinx smokers compared to smoking.

The latest episode, in February, notes that January was a quiet month for studies but they still managed to take a deep dive with Dr Rachna Begh, looking at her study(⁶) focusing on Primary Care that is yet to be published.

Rachna explains how they are looking at how “hard to reach” smokers with chronic diseases talk to advisors about their smokers, especially those who weren’t interested in quitting. Patients were then offered the opportunity to take up an e-cigarette and had any concerns addressed, then given a tote bag containing the device plus three bottles of flavoured e-liquid.

She revealed extraordinary follow-up figures from the study and that 68% of participants were still vaping after two months. Rachna explained how the most important thing to help smokers quit was to offer choice – something that is being restricted in many countries around the world.

The podcast offers excellent insight into what takes place during research and humanises the process.

 

References:

1. Let’s Talk E-cigarettes podcast – https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/lets-talk-e-cigarettes
2. Electronic Cigarettes for Smoking Cessation: Cochrane Living Systematic Review – https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/research/electronic-cigarettes-for-smoking-cessation-cochrane-living-systematic-review-1
3. Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation – https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD010216.pub4/full=
4. Effect of e-Cigarettes Plus Counseling vs Counseling Alone on Smoking Cessation – https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2772759
5. Effect of Pod e-Cigarettes vs Cigarettes on Carcinogen Exposure Among African American and Latinx Smokers – https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2773075
6. Examining the effectiveness of general practitioner and nurse promotion of electronic cigarettes versus standard care for smoking reduction and abstinence in hardcore smokers with smoking-related chronic disease: protocol for a randomised controlled trial – https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13063-019-3850-1