Cytisine is finally emerging from behind the Iron Curtain as a viable treatment to help people quit smoking.

Smoking accounts for more avoidable public health damage than anything else, including obesity. The path to giving up the vice is paved with smoking cessation aids, such as nicotine gums and patches and the drug varenicline (Chantix).

But there’s another treatment that works at least as well. Though it’s been in use since the 1960s, many American doctors have never heard of it. It costs a fraction of what Pfizer’s Chantix does, and it’s even cheaper than patches and gums.

The treatment is cytisine, a plant-based drug that blocks nicotine receptors in the brain much like Chantix does. The drug has been used to treat more than 20 million people.

According to a study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, it is at least as effective as nicotine replacement in helping smokers quit and avoid relapses.

Natalie Walker, Ph.D., a research fellow at New Zealand’s National Institute for Health Innovation, tracked 1310 patients who had called New Zealand’s smoking-cessation hotline. The groups were randomized by ethnicity, gender, and level of addiction.

Half of the volunteers got nicotine replacement therapy and half got cytisine. Both groups got behavioral support as well, which public health groups say is a key part of any effort to quit.

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After one month, 4 in 10 people using cytisine said they hadn’t smoked. Among those who received nicotine-replacement therapy, 3 in 10 had avoided smoking. At two and six months, more cytisine users were still tobacco-free. The drug was particularly effective for women.

Dr. Norman Edelman, a senior medical advisor at the American Lung Association (ALA), said the group “is happy to see a new entity available for smoking cessation.”

The ALA encourages people to quit smoking, however they do it.

“Quitting smoking is the single best thing you can do to improve your health and extend your life,” Edelman said.

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