How effective is exercise as an adjunct to smoking cessation support for promoting smoking cessation in adults?

Abstract

Low‐certainty evidence does not support the addition of exercise programs (typically in the form of group‐based cardiovascular‐type exercise supplemented by a home‐based exercise program) to smoking cessation support (typically in the form of a multisession cognitive‐behavioral smoking cessation program) for increasing smoking abstinence rates at six months or later (on average, 104 vs 97 per 1000 people). Very low‐certainty evidence also found little or no difference in relapse rates among people who had recently stopped smoking (on average, 140 vs 144 per 1000 people). RCT evidence is mixed but generally does not show benefit of an additional exercise program for rates of depression, anxiety, or cigarette withdrawal symptoms or cravings among people receiving smoking cessation support compared with people receiving smoking cessation support alone.