e-Cigarettes, Smoking Cessation, and Weight Change: Retrospective Secondary Analysis of the Evaluating the Efficacy of e-Cigarette Use for Smoking Cessation Trial
Abstract
Background While smoking cessation has been linked to substantial weight gain, the potential influence of e-cigarettes on weight changes among individuals who use these devices to quit smoking is not fully understood. Objective This study aims to reanalyze data from the Evaluating the Efficacy of e-Cigarette Use for Smoking Cessation (E3) trial to assess the causal effects of e-cigarette use on change in body weight. Methods This is a secondary analysis of the E3 trial in which participants were randomized into 3 groups: nicotine e-cigarettes plus counseling, nonnicotine e-cigarettes plus counseling, and counseling alone. With adjustment for baseline variables and the follow-up smoking abstinence status, weight changes were compared between the groups from baseline to 12 weeks’ follow-up. Intention-to-treat and as-treated analyses were conducted using doubly robust estimation. Further causal analysis used 2 different propensity scoring methods to estimate causal regression curves for 4 smoking-related continuous variables. We evaluated 5 different subsets of data for each method. Selection bias was addressed, and missing data were imputed by the machine learning method extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost). Results A total of 257 individuals with measured weight at week 12 (mean age: 52, SD 12 y; women: n=122, 47.5%) were included. Across the 3 treatment groups, of the 257 participants, 204 (79.4%) who continued to smoke had, on average, largely unchanged weight at 12 weeks,…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a secondary / pooled analysis, done in people. Its evidence level is 3 of 5 (Moderate · trial / cohort / secondary analysis). Trials without a large randomized design, cohorts and secondary analyses give moderate evidence. Reported size: 257 participants or records.
Read the paper
Related studies
- Safety and efficacy of COVID‐19 vaccines: A systematic review and meta‐analysis of controlled and randomized clinical trials
- Accuracy Comparison between Robot-Assisted Dental Implant Placement and Static/Dynamic Computer-Assisted Implant Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of In Vitro Studies
- Determinants of passive antibody efficacy in SARS-CoV-2 infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis
- Cleaning efficacy of EDDY versus ultrasonically-activated irrigation in root canals: a systematic review and meta-analysis
- Bonding Efficacy of Universal Resin Adhesives to Zirconia Substrates: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
- In vitro antimicrobial activity of extracts and essential oils of Cinnamomum, Salvia, and Mentha spp. against foodborne pathogens: A meta-analysis study
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.