Researchers with the Center for Tobacco Research at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center will be able to evaluate the effects of e-cigarette flavors on smoking behaviors thanks to a USD 3.9 million grant from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), reports News Medical.

The study, which will be co-led by Theodore Wagener, PhD, director of Ohio State’s Center for Tobacco Research, and Tracy Smith, PhD, of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Hollings Cancer Center, is revolutionary in that it will be the first study to provide definitive information about the impact of non-tobacco e-cigarette flavours for helping adult smokers stop smoking, reports News Medical.
Flavoured e-cigarettes have come under fire due to their youth appeal and with the FDA currently in the process of making regulatory decisions on the matter, Wagener thinks the study can be of great help.
Wagener says “the FDA must decide how to balance its goals of protecting young people and offering harm-reduction options to adults. This new trial will generate critical data to help make more informed public health decisions that have a lasting impact.”.
The national trial will see 1,500 cigarettes users from across the US take part and researchers measuring e-cigarette flavor impact on product uptake and appeal, cigarette craving, symptoms, dependence and smoking behaviour, including sustained and complete switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes, reports News Medical.
“If our study demonstrates no significant improvements in switching with flavoured e-cigarette use, then the continued sale of these products is likely indefensible; however, if improvements are significant, these findings will provide a critical counterweight to the current FDA regulations and will aid future decision making,” Wagener said.