Free smoking cessation aids, such as nicotine patches and chewing gum, are a staple of many corporate wellness programs aimed at encouraging employees to kick the habit. But, new research shows that merely offering such aids for free does not help employees quit, whereas supplementing them with financial incentives is three times more effective.

Smoking tobacco from a water pipe, also known as a hookah, accounted for over half of the tobacco smoke volume consumed by young adult hookah and cigarette smokers, a new University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine analysis discovered.

People often use the expression, “Where there is smoke, there is fire.” Unfortunately for lung cancer patients, the opposite is almost always assumed to be true. Where there is fire (in this case, lung cancer), it is assumed that smoking must have preceded it. This assumption often leads to the question, “Did you smoke?” following almost every personal revelation of lung cancer. Few questions engender such anger and annoyance in patients as that one, particularly in the 10%-20% of lung cancer patients who are “never smokers.”

Pharmaceutical interventions are routinely prescribed to help people quit smoking. However, a new study by University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers suggests that, despite promising results in clinical trials, smoking cessation drugs alone may not be improving the chances of successful quitting among smokers in general.