P-40 Yoga for Smoking Cessation: A Review of Effectiveness and Feasibility on Sex Differences
Author(s):
L Dass, K Mitchell
Year of Presentation:
2022
Objective: Containing more than 7,000 chemicals, cigarette
smoke is attributable to 8 million preventable deaths globally each year. Despite the availability of smoking cessation
medication, in 2018, only 7.5% out of 55% of adult smokers
who attempted to quit, succeeded. The reasons behind a low
successful quit rate are dependent on many factors, including sex differences. Women have been reported to have
a more difficult time quitting and achieving abstinence.
Women tend to smoke to regulate mood, whereas men are
shown to be more sensitive to the effects of nicotine, facilitating physical dependence. Given that yoga has already
been shown to have some success in smoking cessation, we
discuss the feasibility of developing a yoga-based intervention using sex differences as a guide.
Design and Methods: PubMed was used as a primary search engine with the search algorithm [“smoking cessation,” AND “yoga”] to obtain articles evaluating smoking cessation programs, comparing variables by sex.
Results: Yoga increased the odds of 24 hr smoking cessation in women (OR 4.19) but did not significantly contribute to maintaining long term abstinence. Women were more likely to experience withdrawal (41.6% vs 34.9%) and anxiety (41.6% vs 34.9%) symptoms during quit attempts but showed greater attendance rates for yoga classes. More women expressed concern for weight changes (15% vs 0%). Confidence was a point of similarity between both sexes.
Conclusion: Women may benefit more from yoga-based smoking cessation methods, while men may respond more to a wellness focused approach. Due to lack of papers on this topic, more research is needed to design effective interventions.