Nicotine replacement therapy can help smokers quit even when they do not think they are ready to stop completely, a study has found. Smokers who have not yet come to the point of total commitment of quitting, but wish to reduce their smoking are twice as likely to stop in the long term if they use nicotine replacements to help them cut down gradually, the University of Birmingham team reported.

"Until now experts have advised people not to reduce their smoking but to quit abruptly," Paul Aveyard, one of the researchers, said. "The worry has been that advising reduction will somehow deter people from the better alternative, which is stopping right now," he added. "This treatment program is a way of potentially encouraging a lot more smokers into actually using nicotine replacement, which in the long term will help more of them stop smoking than if they hadn't done so."

Smoking is considered to be one of the biggest causes of disease and premature death and its effects cost Britain's National Health Service up to £1.7 billion per annum.

Success rates of quitting are notoriously low: up to half of British smokers attempt to quit each year, but only 2-3% do so successfully. Other research suggests that in their lifetime a smoker will try to quit an average of 6-11 times.