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LASER SMOKING- CESSATION
The business of irradiating people with laser energy in order to help them stop smoking is being widely advertised these days and many people have been asking our opinion about it's effectiveness. So we did an internet search of the PubMed medical research data base, co-sponsored by two US government agencies, the National Institutes of Health and the National Library of Medicine. We found a meta-analysis of 22 studies of smokers of all ages and a single study of adolescent smokers, and found that of all the studies analyzed, not a single laser smoking-cessation program had a success rate higher than its control group, which had not been irradiated with laser energy. In other words no laser smoking-cessation program had any success at all other than whatever slight placebo effect it shared with its control group. This came as no surprise because, although traditional acupuncture is a respected technique for pain control, there seems to be no scientific basis for irradiating people with laser energy to help them stop smoking.
“Acupuncture For
Smoking Cessation"
This analysis was conducted by A.R. White, H. Rampes, and E. Ernst from the Department of Complementary Medicine, at the University of Exeter, in Exeter, UK. (1)
They searched the Cochrane Controlled Trials Medline Register for randomized trials that compared laser therapy, acupuncture, acupressure, or electrostimulation to sham treatment, another intervention, or no intervention at all for smoking cessation.
The researchers assessed abstinence from smoking at various time points: before 6 weeks, at six months, and at one year.
They found that laser therapy and electrostimulation were not superior to sham forms of those therapies.
After thoroughly analyzing the results of the 22 studies, their published conclusion was:
"There is no clear evidence that acupuncture, acupressure, laser therapy, or electrostimulation are effective for smoking cessation."
"Laser acupuncture for adolescent smokers--a randomized double blind controlled study.”
This study was conducted by C. Yiming, Z. Changxin, W.S Ung, Z. Lei, and L.S. Kean at the Department of Adolescent Psychiatry, Woodbridge Hospital/Institute of Mental Health in Singapore. (2)
A group of three hundred and thirty adolescent smokers at the Smoking Cessation Clinic of the Child Guidance Clinic at the Institute of Health in Singapore were randomly divided into two groups of equal size.
The test group was given laser acupuncture treatment for smoking cessation, and the control group was given sham acupuncture treatment.
After four weeks of treatment 21.9% of the test group were completely smoke free, and an almost equal number of the untreated control group, 21.4%, were also smoke free.
There was no significant difference in success between the test group and the control group.
LASER TREATMENT FOR SMOKERS CALLED FRAUD by Public Citizen, a Washington-based government watchdog group, which is questioning both it's safety and effectiveness and is petitioning the FDA to take action against it.
References:
(1) White AR, Rampes H, Ernst E, Acupunture for smoking cessation. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2002;(2): CD000009.
© Copyright 2007 Don De Grazia
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