For as little as $6, there may be a smoking-cessation remedy that actually works.
A clinical test of Tabex, sold in Eastern Europe for more than four decades, shows the plant-based medicine can triple smokers’ chances of quitting compared with a dummy pill. The results of a study on 740 people were published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The tablet, developed and sold by Bulgaria’s Sopharma, may help smokers with limited means quit, scientists said. Most of the 6 million people who die from tobacco use each year are from low- and middle-income countries, according to the World Health Organization.
Robert West of University College London’s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, led the research team.
The study’s results suggest Tabex could become “a practical option even for the poorest smokers,” West said.
In the study, 8.4 percent of patients taking Tabex for 25 days with “minimal” counseling abstained from smoking for a year, compared with 2.4 percent of those given a placebo. Smokers who took Tabex reported more gastrointestinal upset.
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