Why e-smoking has got me fuming The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) found that the vast majority of users of e-cigarettes were current or former smokers, and that many users feared they would return to smoking tobacco if the products were banned. Separately, research published in The Lancet last September showed that e-cigarettes were at least as effective as patches in helping people to stop smoking: 7.3 per cent using e-cigarettes had quit after six months, compared with 5.8 per cent using patches. After six months, 57 per cent of e-cigarette users had halved the number of cigarettes smoked each day, compared with 41 per cent of those using patches. No wonder then, that in the UK a quarter of all attempts to kick the habit are made using e-cigarettes, making it the most popular quitting aid. The truth is that many smokers prefer e-cigarettes to the conventional nicotine replacement therapy offered by doctors, but the medical profession is notoriously slow to accept new or alternative options. This staid and reactionary outlook risks doing tremendous harm. Furthermore, the medical profession is woefully out of step with public opinion. A recent BBC poll of nearly 1,000 people suggested most support their use in public places and don't want to see a ban. What really worries me is that governments are listening to doctors without apparently asking for research to back up their concerns. Just before Christmas, New York banned the use of e-cigarettes in public places, treating them like conventional cigarettes. In this country there are already plans to regulate them as medicines by 2016, causing concern that the fledgling industry will be regulated out of existence. It is perverse that these products should be placed under such tight control, when the tobacco companies are allowed to continue to manufacture products known to be responsible for millions of deaths a year worldwide. I suspect that many of the critics have never smoked and are taking the purist stance that people shouldn't smoke at all, be it tobacco or nicotine vapour. If only my colleagues would take a pragmatic approach. E‑cigarettes are perfect for those who wish to continue "smoking" but without the myriad risks of smoking tobacco. If this viable alternative is withdrawn, many will continue to smoke the real thing - and no one wants that. Last year, 31,000 people in this country died owing to the cold weather - most over the age of 75. This is a shameful statistic and almost impossible to comprehend in a developed nation. Even more shameful is that, just before Christmas, the Government quietly announced that it was scrapping a scheme that helped the most vulnerable elderly people to keep warm - despite its own review finding that it was universally popular and effective. The scheme, called the Warm Homes Healthy People (WHHP) fund, had helped 200,000 people a year by providing councils with money to offer emergency boiler repairs, hot meals to the elderly leaving hospital, snow-clearing and advice about fuel bills. Of those helped, 62 per cent were pensioners and 12 per cent were young children in deprived or "fuel-poor" homes. These are austere times, but I'm horrified that of all the things the Government could have cut, they chose this. What can be done? Well, aside from lobbying the Government to reintroduce the fund, NHS Choices has a campaign that I wholeheartedly support. Called Winter Friends, it asks people to pledge to look in on an older friend or neighbour during the cold and adverse weather, the hope being that 100,000 people will get involved. The scheme cannot replace the WHHP fund, but it does show how everyone can do their bit to tackle the shameful fact that even in this country, people still die of the cold. I currently have flu. Well, some pedants might call it a common cold, but I'm not listening. Especially as my favourite piece of research from last year confirmed what men have been saying since Adam first asked Eve for a Lemsip: man-flu really does exist. The study, conducted by the Stanford University School of Medicine, looked at the differences between men and women's immune responses to flu, and showed that women launch a far stronger response to the virus because testosterone weakens men's systems. Scientists were perplexed that evolution would seemingly favour a hormone that made people more susceptible to illness - but who cares about that? It's scientific proof that we men shouldn't have to do the washing up when we have a sniffle. Max Pemberton's latest book, 'The Doctor Will See You Now" (Hodder) is available from Telegraph Books on 0844 871 1515 or books.telegraph.co.uk