The American Lung Association has reported that cigarette smoking is responsible for one in five deaths in the U.S. And while some estimates indicate that 70 percent of smokers want to kick the habit and 34 percent try to stop each year, just 2.5 percent succeed in quitting smoking.
Although new products have emerged over the years to help smokers quit— think nicotine patches, gum and some antidepressants — limited success rates have led to a growing interest in using alternative therapies such as acupuncture to help with smoking cessation.
Studies performed in recent years have offered mixed results as to the effectiveness of acupuncture in smoking cessation. For instance, Canadian researchers, whose findings appeared in the American Journal of Medicine in 2012, looked at 14 international studies that used drug-free methods to help quit smoking.
While the findings questioned the effectiveness of alternative therapies, they also showed that treatments such as acupuncture should serve as options for smokers who first try standard methods such as nicotine-replacement, medications and behavioral counseling.
Some studies showed that smokers who used acupuncture to quit were more than three times as likely to be tobacco-free six months to a year down the road.
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