Products for Quit-Smoking Won't Harm your Heart: Study

"Patients are often concerned that nicotine replacement therapies, such as the nicotine gum or patch, will harm them," said Dr. Jonathan Whiteson, a smoking cessation specialist at NYU, Newsmax Health reports. "However in most situations, patients are getting more nicotine from their smoking habit than from nicotine replacement when not smoking."

The results "should give reassurance to smokers trying to quit with nicotine replacement therapy, as well as health care practitioners prescribing them, that there is no significant or long-term detrimental effect from their use," Whiteson said.

The new study was led by Edward Mills, an associate professor of medicine at Stanford University and at the University of Ottawa. His team analyzed 63 studies, comprising more than 30,500 people, to assess the heart-related effects of nicotine replacement gums and patches, the nicotine addiction treatment varenicline (Chantix), and the antidepressant buproprion (Wellbutrin).

The study found that nicotine replacement therapies temporarily increased the chances of a rapid or abnormal heartbeat, but this most often occurred when people were still smoking while using them. There was no increased risk of serious heart events.

Whiteson said. "Nicotine replacement protocols are designed to start after the last cigarette is smoked to avoid this."

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