"Nicotine replacement therapies such as gums or patches may not help smokers kick the habit longterm a new study shows. Relapse rates of the quitters were similar during the study period whether they used the products alone or with counseling or they did not use them. Nicotine replacement therapies ... do not show any longterm effect on quitting even when combined with counseling says researcher Gregory Connolly DMD director of the Center for Global Tobacco https Control and professor of public health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Behavioral counseling is widely recommended with medication https to help smokers quit. The results of the new study are published online in Tobacco Control. The findings are at odds with clinical trials https Connolly says. The new study however draws from the population. It gives a more real world picture he tells WebMD. Smoking cessation https experts and a maker of nicotine replacement therapies took issue with the findings. Connolly does not advocate abandoning the nicotine replacement medication. Instead he suggests understanding its use. In the short term what it is designed for is treatment of withdrawal he says. Long term our study would not say it would prevent relapse. Better strategies are needed to prevent relapse he tells WebMD. Nicotine Replacement Study Details Connolly followed  adult smokers who had recently quit in Massachusetts. The participants were interviewed over three time periods In  to   to  and  to . Of the  people  finished the second interview and  the third interview. The participants told whether they had used a patch gum inhaler or spray. They told how long they used the product continuously. The recommended practice is to use the product for eight weeks Connolly says. Most did not use the products. For instance at the first interview  did not use them. Those who did use them did so for various time periods. At the first interview the  of those who used the products did so for more than six weeks About onethird of the quitters had relapsed at each of the three time periods. The chances of relapse were not affected by use of the nicotine replacement products for more than six weeks or whether the program included counseling. The relapse odds were highest for those who had been heavily dependent on nicotine and used the products but did not get counseling. In the past five years the declines in adult smoking https seen in previous years have stalled Connolly says. Deciding how best to get smokers to quit for good is a public health challenge. Sales of the nicotine replacement products have risen Connolly says. Sales totaled  million in  when nicotine gum was introduced. Since  sales have totaled more than  million annually. The findings of this study cast doubt on the relative effectiveness of NRT nicotine replacement therapy as a population strategy the researchers write. The money now spent on coverage for the medications Connolly says should be balanced by ongoing public health programs that encourage smokers to quit. Professor We Shouldnt OverEmphasize Nicotine Replacement Therapy Steven Schroeder MD professor of medicine and director of the Smoking Cessation https Leadership Center at the University of California San Francisco reviewed the study findings for WebMD. Its a useful reminder that there are many ways to help smokers quit and we shouldnt overemphasize nicotine replacement therapy he tells WebMD. However he sees some limitations to the study. He questions whether more participants were needed to find the true effects of the medication with or without counseling. Another limitation he says is that few took the treatment as recommended. His bottom line I tell smokers its important to quit. Some do it cold turkey. But data show if you get counseling and one or more of the medications it will increase your chances of quitting longterm. He is referring to previous studies showing that the combination approach helps people quit. The study is seriously biased says Saul Shiffman PhD professor of psychology https at the University of Pittsburgh and a longtime researcher in the field. He serves as a consultant to GlaxoSmithKline which markets the nicotine replacement products Nicorette https and NicoDerm https CQ. He too cites the limited use of the products as a problem. He believes clinical trials such as those that compare using the medications to not using them give a truer picture. Numerous clinical trials he says show that these medications double your chances of quitting. Nicotine Replacement Industry WeighIn When it comes to smoking cessation https there is no magic pill says Deborah Bolding a spokesperson for GlaxoSmithKline in an emailed statement to WebMD. She cites hundreds of clinical trials showing the products work when used as directed. NRT products she writes have helped millions of smokers quit by gradually weaning them off their tobacco addiction https and the approach is recommended as a primary therapy for quitting."