A review of smoking cessation studies found the majority quit
using willpower alone

Source: The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday (uk)
Date: 2010-02-09
Author: Fiona Macrae

Smokers desperate to quit should put their faith in willpower
rather than expensive patches and gums, researchers said last
night.

A review of hundreds of studies into smoking cessation has
revealed that the overwhelming majority of ex-smokers gave up
without resorting to nicotine replacement therapies.

Old-fashioned willpower alone was enough to make them quit their
habit.

What is more, studies which extol the virtues of nicotine
patches, gums and pills are more than twice as likely to have
been funded by drug companies than others, the Australian
researchers said.

Simon Chapman, a professor of public health, said that
governments were also guilty of medicalising smoking cessation
and of making giving up sound harder than it actually is.

The Sydney University team\'s analysis of 511 studies on quitting
smoking published in recent years showed that two-thirds to
three-quarters of ex-smokers stopped unaided and that most said
they had found it easier to quit than they had expected. . . .

But Amanda Sandford, of anti-smoking group Ash, disagreed with
Professor Chapman\'s interpretation of the research.

She said that studies into the benefits of nicotine patches and
gums were \'robust\' and that \'all the evidence points to relying
on willpower alone is not terribly successful\'. . . .

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: \'This study is
inconsistent with a very well established evidence-base. Smokers
that attempt to quit without assistance are significantly less
likely to quit successfully than those who quit with support.