Over 30 million adults in America smoke cigarettes. Unfortunately, that number doesn’t seem to be going down, either because — as ironic as it might seem given the respiratory risk — smoking appeared to have made a comeback during the COVID pandemic. Despite all we know about why we shouldn’t smoke, it’s notoriously difficult to “just stop.” But this new non-invasive brain stimulation treatment may help smokers quit.
In a study published yesterday in the journal Addiction, researchers analyzed seven studies about non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) and smoking cessation. Researchers looked at the data of 699 participants, half of whom received NIBS treatment. The other half got a placebo. Researchers determined that people who had NIBS treatment were more than twice as likely to remain abstinent from cigarettes three to six months after, according to the study.
