E-cigarettes reduce tobacco cravings and help people quit smoking, study finds

WASHINGTON -- Vaping is having a moment. The Oxford Dictionaries recently named the term, which means "to inhale and exhale the vapor produced by an electronic cigarette or similar device," its Word of the Year for 2014. Estimates put the size of the e-cigarette market at around $2.5 billion in annual sales. Users tout them as tar-free alternatives to traditional cigarettes that help them reduce their nicotine consumption. Others are worried about all the unknowns associated with huffing propylene glycol and concentrated nicotine. A new study adds to a growing body of research showing that e-cigs do, in fact, help people cut back on their tobacco consumption. Over an eight-month period, Belgian researchers tracked 48 smokers who were unwilling to quit smoking. The smokers were divided in to three groups: two who were given e-cigarettes over the entirety of the period, and a third that switched from tobacco to e-cigarettes two months into the study period.