Do you believe the NRT/Zyban/Chantix hype?

If you are a regular reader of my blog you will know I have always wondered why NRT is promoted as a method for helping quit smoking. You can read my views on NRT in this post: Nicotine Replacement Therapy: can it help you quit smoking?

I also have grave doubts about the use of Varenicline also known as Chatix and Champix. Its manufacturer, Pfizer, claims a success rate of 44% in studies that it sponsored. In reality, the best results that have been found in repeat, independent studies, were about 22%.

NRT has been shown to ‘double you chances’ of quitting but there is still evidence that NRT is not effective at all in helping people quit smoking in the long term. Smoers stop smoking and start ‘taking NRT’.

Zyban has been found to improve your chances to an average 16% success rate. There are doubts about these studies, as there are with Varnicline because it is alleged that “hardened smokers” are always excluded from the studies. If you don’t let the hardcore smokers try to quit, your studies are not going to be accurate.

You can read more of my articles about these drugs throughout my blog.

I found a BBC Panorama program about how drug companies can arrange the outcomes of drug studies. It is of course in their interests to big up the performance of their drugs. It is 32 minutes long and I know you may not think it is important to quitting smoking but I think it is becasue there is so much conflicting advice out there.

I wholehearted believe that quitting smoking can be easily achieved without using any drugs. I advocate it in my book, the EasyQuit System. It is a lot easier to quit smoking than virtually all smokers believe. Before trying to quit using NRT, Varenicline or Zyban, have a look at this documentary about the way Britain’s largest drug company ‘doctored’ its results for Seroxat.

The film can be found on this link: BBC Panorama Documentary from January 29th 2007. You will need windows media player.