Jamie Hartmann-Boyce and Nicola Lindson discuss emerging evidence in e-cigarette research and interview Steve Cook from the University of Michigan USA about the importance of correctly interpreting and assessing the available data. Associate Professor Jamie Hartmann-Boyce and Associate Professor Nicola Lindson discuss the new evidence in e-cigarette research and interview Dr Steven Cook from the Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health University of Michigan and the Centre for Assessment of Tobacco Regulations, University of Michigan.

In the May podcast Steve Cook discusses the methodological problems of cross-sectional data on the health effects of e-cigarette use a topic he addressed at the May 2025 EC Summit, Washington DC. Steve Cook underlines why all cross-sectional health effects studies should be interpreted with extreme caution unless they examine dose-response relationships and account for temporality and cigarette smoking confounding. Dr Cook emphasises the importance of other information such as smoking histories and health histories and the importance of developing a best practice to ensure that we minimize the risks associated with spurious association and maximise predictive accuracy.

Steven Cook receives National Institute for Health (NIH) and Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) funding. This is not deemed a conflict of interest.

EC Summit, Washington DC: https://www.e-cigarette-summit.com/program-2025/ Recent paper: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.111985

This podcast is a companion to the electronic cigarettes Cochrane living systematic review and Interventions for quitting vaping review and shares the evidence from the monthly searches.

Our search for the EC for smoking cessation review carried out on 1st May 2025 found

1 ongoing (NCT06922617) and 1 linked study (DOI: 10.1101/2025.02.17.25322409).

Our search for our interventions for quitting vaping review up to 1st May 2025 found 1 new (DOI 10.1001/jama.2025.3810) and 4 ongoing studies (DOI 10.2196/71961, KCT0010346, NCT06909500, NCT06929520).

For further details see our webpage under 'Monthly search findings':

https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/research/electronic-cigarettes-for-smoking-cessation-cochrane-living-systematic-review-1

For more information on the full Cochrane review of E-cigarettes for smoking cessation updated in January 2025 see: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD010216.pub9/full

For more information on the full Cochrane review of Interventions for quitting vaping published in January 2025 see: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD016058.pub2/full

This podcast is supported by Cancer Research UK.