Electronic cigarettes are marketed as a way to help smokers quit traditional tobacco cigarettes, but a new study shows they might prevent people from kicking the habit. It discovered that adult e-cigarette users were 28 percent less likely to quit smoking cigarettes.

The study was published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. It is one of many e-cigarette studies performed in recent years.

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Past research has sometimes provided contradictory results. However, the new study is a meta-analysis of past studies and the all-time largest one.   

E-cigarettes get their power from batteries. They heat up liquid nicotine and flavorings to provide the user with vapor that is breathed in, creating a non-tobacco sense of smoking.  

E-cigs are often marketed as being a healthier type of smoking than tobacco cigarettes. The reason is that users are not inhaling cancer-causing smoke, so they can try to quit smoking.

Dr. Sara Kalkhoran was at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine when the study was done, and is now at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She shared that e-cigarettes are linked to much lower rates of people quitting smoking, according to CBS News.

Kalkhoran argued that e-cigarettes should not yet be recommended to help people quit smoking. The reason is there is no solid evidence that they help people to stop lighting up.

The UCSF team reviewed 38 studies that evaluated the link between e-cigarettes and adult smokers quitting the habit. Nearly half the studies had control groups of non-e-cig smokers.

Co-author Dr. Stanton A. Glantz is a professor medicine at UCSF. He explained that c-cigarettes are clearly less unhealthy than traditional cigarettes. However, they do not help people to quit smoking.  

CBS News points out that no e-cigarette companies have applied to the United States' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve their smoking devices. In addition, the FDA has not demanded that companies stop claiming that e-cigs can help people to quit smoking.

The American Cancer Society reports that about 4 to 7 percent of all people can quit smoking without using any medications, according to Inverse. Only about one-quarter of people can stay smoke-free for over half a year.

This video discusses if e-cigarettes re safe: