This is the Best Way to Quit Smoking

Nicola Lindson-Hawley - who studies tobacco and health at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford - remembered how hard it was for her mum to quit smoking.

Because of what her mum went through, she knew she wanted to help others quit smoking. 

She did a study of 700 smokers to find out the best way to quit. Is it going cold turkey or being weaned off?

Study participants were randomly assigned to two groups. One had to quit abruptly on a given day, going from about a pack a day to zero. The other tapered down over the course of two weeks, first to half a pack each day, and then to a quarter of a pack before quitting.

People in both groups used nicotine patches before they quit, in addition to a second form of nicotine replacement, like gum or nasal spray. They also had talk therapy with a nurse before and after quit day.

"After they'd quit, we rang them up four weeks later and six months later to see how they were getting on," says Lindson-Hawley.

After six months, more people who had quit abruptly had stuck with it - more than one-fifth of them, compared to about one-seventh in the other group.

So, cold turkey is the way to go!

The quit rates were convincing given that before the study started, most of the people had said they'd rather cut down gradually before quitting than go cold turkey. 

"If you're training for a marathon, you wouldn't expect to turn up and just be able to run it. And I think people see that for smoking as well. They think, 'Well, if I gradually reduce it's almost practice,' " she says.

But that wasn't the case. Lindson-Hawley says instead of giving people practice, the gradual reduction likely gave them cravings and withdrawal before they even reached the quit day, which could be why fewer people in that group actually made it to that point.

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