Smokers should be offered and encouraged to use e-cigarettes to help them quit, says a leading medical body.The UK's Royal College of Physicians says there is resounding evidence that e-cigarettes are "much safer" than smoking and aid quitting.With the right checks and measures, vaping could improve the lives of millions of people, it says in a new, 200-page report.It says fears that e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking are unfounded.But, by and large, people who want to use electronic cigarettes will still need to buy them rather than get them on the NHS.Do e-cigarettes make it harder to stop smoking?Should we switch from tobacco to e-cigarettes?UK doctors can only prescribe e-cigarettes if they have been licensed as a "quit smoking aid" - something that requires strict regulation.Few manufacturers go down this route and instead sell products to satisfy users' desire for nicotine without the harmful chemicals produced by tobacco.Sales of e-cigarettes have been rising steadily since the first went on sale in 2007 in the UK.

Since 2012, they have replaced nicotine patches and gum to become the most popular choice of smoking cessation aid in England.Around one in 20 adults in England uses e-cigarettes, and nearly all of these are ex-smokers or current smokers who are trying to cut down or quit.E-cigarettes have remained controversial and this year ministers in Wales attempted to ban them from public places.The Royal College of Physicians says smokers who use e-cigarettes or prescribed medications - with support from their doctor - are more likely to quit permanently.On some e-cigarettes, inhalation activates the battery-powered atomiser.Other types are manually switched on2.A heating coil inside the atomiser heats liquid nicotine contained in a cartridge3.The mixture becomes vapour and is inhaled.Many e-cigarettes have an LED light as a cosmetic feature to simulate traditional cigarette glow.Different brands of e-cigarettes contain different chemical concentrations.And in terms of long-term health hazards, e-cigarettes are at least 95% safer than regular cigarettes - something Public Health England has also said.But that does not mean they are entirely risk-free.

Prof Simon Capewell, of the Faculty of Public Health, said there were still many unknown factors."We don't know enough yet about the long-term effects of vaping on people's health, which is why we need more research."Thee cigarette epinalbest thing anyone can do if they want to quit smoking is talk to their GP: there's solid evidence that NHS quit-smoking services help people kick the habit for good."Bute cigarette cracklingProf John Britton, who co-authored the RCP report, says e-cigarettes are extremely positive for public health and should be "encouraged and endorsed".e cigarette ageHe said: "The public need to be reassured this is not a new nicotine epidemic in the making.E-cigarettes have very little downside and a lot of potential benefit."According

to Public Health England, smokers should consider using e-cigarettes alongside NHS quit-smoking services.Around a third of UK smokers try to quit each year, but only one in every six of those succeeds.New EU laws are due to come into force in May that will set safety and quality standards for all e-cigarettes and refills.Manufacturers will be required to disclose the purity of their products to consumers.Dr Tim Ballard, from the Royal College of GPs, said: "Moving forward we would be looking for clear evidence that making e-cigarettes available on prescription as part of a wider smoking cessation scheme is a wise use of both scant NHS funds and GP practice resources, before the College could get behind it."Itis not just the cost of the product that needs taking into account, but the time and resources that are involved in assessing patients, and monitoring their progress over a prolonged period of time."We reiterate our calls for NICE to take a leading role in establishing whether making e-cigarettes available on prescription is the best way forward."A

Department of Health spokesperson said: "The best thing a smoker can do for their health is to quit smoking."We know that there are now over a million people who have completely replaced smoking with e-cigarettes and that the evidence indicates that they are significantly less harmful to health than smoking tobacco."We want to see a wide range of good quality e-cigarettes on the market including licensed products whose safety, quality and effectiveness are independently assured."E-cigarettes, devices that give you a nicotine-hit by heating up a liquid which you then inhale, have become all the rage.But is the concern about them justified, asks Michael Mosley.A few years ago they were a rarity, but now there are nearly three million e-cigarettes out there.Many people think that they are as bad for you as normal cigarettes.I've recently spent a couple of months making a documentary about e-cigarettes, trying to find out truth behind the headlines.I took up heavy vaping (that's what you do when you inhale vapour from an e-cigarettes).

I have never smoked anything before and I wanted to see what effects inhaling nicotine in the form of an e-cig would have on a non-smoker.The results surprised me.Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you and can lead to lung cancer.It also increases your risk of dying from a range of other conditions including heart attack, stroke and dementia.If you're a man you might like to know (but then again you might not) that smoking is one of the main causes of impotence.Fans of e-cigarettes say vaping can reduce the burden of smoking either by making it easier for smokers to quit or by providing them with a safer way for them to get a nicotine hit.Critics, however, say that we are gambling with a technology we don't understand and that there is no convincing evidence that e-cigarettes help people quit smoking.It may even encourage non-smokers to start.Some countries have warily embraced e-cigarettes, while others have effectively banned them.The UK has so far adopted a liberal approach, but on Friday new European legislation will come into force which will limit the size of refills and the nicotine content of the fluids.

Vaping will become more restricted.Horizon: E-cigarettes - miracle or menace?is on BBC Two on Sunday 22 May or catch up later via iplayeriPlayerSo, who's right?Are e-cigarettes one of the greatest public health measures ever invented, with the potential to save millions of lives, or are they just another cunning way to keep us hooked on nicotine?I was keen to find out.Well the scientific consensus is that vaping, at least in the short term, is a lot safer than conventional smoking.A recent study for Public Health England concluded that e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful than normal cigarettes.To be honest when I took up vaping I wasn't that worried about the short term health effects.What I was far more concerned about was getting hooked on nicotine.Yet as the weeks went by and I puffed away, nothing happened.When I leapt out of bed I didn't feel a longing to reach for my machine.If anything I found it a bit of a chore.Chatting to experts I discovered, to my considerable surprise, that although cigarettes are highly addictive, nicotine alone may not be.

Although no-one knows for sure, research in animals suggests that nicotine is far more addictive when delivered in combination with the other chemicals found in regular cigarettes.And nicotine in its pure form may have an upside.There's evidence it can help patients with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.The National Institute on Aging in the US has recently funded a trial of 300 patients with mild cognitive impairment (a precursor to Alzheimer's).The patients, none of whom are smokers, will be randomly allocated to either nicotine patches or placebo patches.Over the next few years they will have regular health checks, as well as memory and cognition tests.A similar, smaller study, published in 2012, found that non-smokers given nicotine patches saw improvements in memory, attention and reaction times.But before you start slapping on the patches or firing up an e-cig you should be aware that though nicotine may help people who already have impaired memory, there's no evidence it will help the rest of us.

Although I was tested before and after doing a month of heavy vaping, the nicotine didn't enhance my brain, apart from a small improvement in my fine motor skills.But the main health justification for e-cigarettes is that they can help those who are keen to quit smoking tobacco, quit.So do they?There have been very few randomised controlled trials, but the ones that have been done suggest it does.When Horizon conducted a small study where we randomly allocated a group of hardcore smokers to either e-cigs, nicotine patches or simply giving up (going cold turkey), we found the vapers and those who slapped on the patches were far more successful at abandoning their cigarettes.E-cigs are not risk free and after a month of heavy vaping there were signs of increased inflammation in my lungs (which rapidly reversed when I stopped).Nonetheless I think that for smokers e-cigarettes could prove to be a game changer.There is a huge amount at stake.A billion people worldwide spend around £500bn a year on cigarettes and around half of them will die of smoking related diseases.