Opinion: Heated tobacco - a new review looks at the risks and benefits

man smoking an e-cigarette - Switching from cigarettes to heated tobacco lowers levels of exposure to harmful chemicals but more evidence is needed, say PhD candidate Harry Tattan-Birch, Professor Jamie Brown (both UCL Epidemiology & Health) and Professor Jamie Hartmann-Boyce (University of Oxford). Heated tobacco products are designed to heat tobacco without burning it or producing smoke. The popularity of these products soared in Japan after the release of an electronic device called IQOS in 2016. Heated tobacco products are now available in many countries, but questions remained about their effect on cigarette smoking and health, so we set out to review the evidence. Our  new review  covers data from 11 studies with over 2,600 people. The headline finding is that people who switched from cigarettes to heated tobacco had lower levels of exposure to harmful chemicals than those who kept smoking, but higher levels of these toxins than those who stopped using tobacco altogether. This lower exposure was found across a number of harmful substances linked to cancers, heart disease and respiratory problems.