Snus can facilitate smoking cessation

Researchers in Sweden and Australia have concluded that snus has contributed to decreasing initiation of smoking in Sweden.

And they say that it appears that when used subsequent to smoking, snus facilitates smoking cessation.

Their findings were published as Patterns of Smoking and Snus Use in Sweden: Implications for Public Health in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Analyses were based on a data set for the period January 2003 to February 2011 from a long-term study covering nationally representative samples of the Swedish population aged 18–79, with a total study population of 60,675 individuals.

In an abstract, the researchers said that among those who started using snus after starting as smokers, 76.3 percent of men and 71.6 percent of women had stopped smoking completely, including 31.5 percent of the men and 28.6 percent of the women who had quit all forms of tobacco.

And they said that snus was also reported as the most common smoking cessation aid among men and yielded higher success rates than nicotine replacement therapy and other alternatives.

The abstract is at: http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/11/1110.

The full text is at: http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/11/1110/htm