Tobacco.org

• Lung cancer on the rise among Dutch women 

The number of women suffering from lung cancer is expected to more than double in the coming decade.

The Dutch Cancer Society (KWF) expects about 8,500 women will be suffering from the disease in 2020, compared to close to 4,000 in 2007.

A spokesperson for the organisation says: "When women smoke just as much as men, they are more likely to get lung cancer. This is probably related to their hormonal system."

Jump to full article »

• Dutch unease over cigarette lobbying 

In the Netherlands, politicians are being accused of allowing the powerful tobacco lobby to exercise undue influence over smoking policy.

In recent years while most countries have been tightening anti-smoking legislation, the Netherlands has partially reversed some of its laws - allowing people to smoke in some bars again and cutting funding for anti-smoking organisations.

Now there are allegations that this could be due to improper links between the politicians and the tobacco industry, and experts are warning it could have a potentially deadly impact on the nation's health.

'Saved business'

Three years ago, like many others across Europe, the Dutch government outlawed smoking in bars.

But over the past six months, under pressure from licence holders, ministers in the Netherlands have been rolling back the restrictions. . . .

Researchers predict that without tougher anti-smoking policies and more help for those who want to give up over the next 30 years, almost a million people in the Netherlands will die prematurely due to tobacco-related diseases.

But the economic crisis is forcing the government to implement cross departmental budget cuts.

The Stiviro smoking cessation clinic in The Hague has had its government funding cut completely.

Jump to full article »

Smoking Increases the Risk for Colorectal Adenomas in Patients With Lynch Syndrome 

Background & Aims

Individuals with Lynch syndrome have a high risk of developing colorectal carcinomas and adenomas at a young age, due to inherited mutations in mismatch repair genes. We investigated whether modifiable lifestyle factors, such as smoking and alcohol intake, increase this risk. , , ,

Conclusions

Among people with Lynch syndrome, current smokers have an increased risk of colorectal adenomas. Former smokers have a lower risk than current smokers, but greater risk than never smokers. Individuals with Lynch syndrome should be encouraged to avoid smoking.

Jump to full article »

Combined adverse effects of maternal smoking and high body mass index on heart development in offspring: evidence for interaction?  

Conclusions

Maternal overweight and smoking may have a synergistic adverse effect on the development of the fetal heart. Overweight women who wish to become pregnant should be strongly encouraged to stop smoking and to lose weight.

Jump to full article »

• Pregnant, Fat and Smoking? Your Baby's At Risk  

Pregnant women who are both overweight and smoke are putting their babies' hearts at risk, according to a study published online in the journal Heart.

Researchers from the University Medical Center Groningen, The Netherlands, studied the impact smoking by obese pregnant mothers has on the heart of the unborn baby. They found that the risk for congenital heart defects in babies increased with around eight in every 1,000 babies affected when their obese moms smoked during pregnancy.

Jump to full article »

• Dutch smokers still don't know what's in their cigarettes 

Smokers in the Netherlands are still not being told what has been added to the tobacco in their cigarettes, even though this has been required since 2008, Trouw reports on Monday.

While tobacco companies have delivered the information to government officials, the health ministry has not yet made the lists public, saying it hopes to publish the details this year.

'The aim is to publish the information in an informative and public-friendly way. People need to be able to benefit from the information and draw the right conclusions,' a spokeswoman for health minister Edith Schippers told the paper. 'But this has taken more time than expected.'

Cocoa and menthol

Trouw says market leader Philip Morris has published a list of 209 ingredients which are added to tobacco for the Dutch market, while British American Tobacco's list contains 137 ingredients.

The World Health Organisation is meeting in Geneva from tomorrow to discuss international rules for additives and flavourings in tobacco.

Jump to full article »

Electrophysiological correlates of associative learning in smokers: a higher-order conditioning experiment 

Conclusions

It can be concluded that smokers show associative learning for higher-order smoking-related stimuli. The present study directly shows the contribution of higher-order conditioning to smoking addiction and is the first to reveal its electrophysiological correlates. Although results are preliminary, they may help in understanding the etiology of smoking addiction and its persistence.

Jump to full article »

Physiological Reactions To Associated Images In Smokers Sees Them 'Salivate' To Cigarettes 

It is commonly known that, much like Pavlov's dogs salivating in response to hearing the bell they associate with dinner time, smokers feel cravings and have physiological reactions to pictures they associate with smoking. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Neuroscience has shown that a smoker's cravings can also be trained to non-smoking related stimuli.

Classical conditioning experiments link a neutral stimulus, such as a sound or a picture, to an event, like eating or smoking. Higher order, sometimes called second order conditioning, links this neutral stimulus to a second event. In the case of Pavlov's dogs, if they could have been trained to associate a light being switched on with the sound of the bell and consequently began to salivate to the light only this would be second order conditioning.

Marianne Littel and Prof Franken, from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, compared the reactions of smokers and non-smokers to a smoking related picture or to a neutral (non-smoking related) picture. These classical responses were then paired to a second round of neutral stimuli - the researchers chose a geometric shape (a cube or a pyramid). The responses of the subjects, such as their cravings and EEG measurements of brain activity, were recorded at each stage.

Jump to full article »

Smokers 'salivate' to cigarettes: The physiological reactions to associated images 

It is commonly known that, much like Pavlov's dogs salivating in response to hearing the bell they associate with dinner time, smokers feel cravings and have physiological reactions to pictures they associate with smoking. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Neuroscience has shown that a smoker's cravings can also be trained to non-smoking related stimuli.

Classical conditioning experiments link a neutral stimulus, such as a sound or a picture, to an event, like eating or smoking. Higher order, sometimes called second order conditioning, links this neutral stimulus to a second event. In the case of Pavlov's dogs, if they could have been trained to associate a light being switched on with the sound of the bell and consequently began to salivate to the light only this would be second order conditioning.

Marianne Littel and Prof Franken, from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, compared the reactions of smokers and non-smokers to a smoking related picture or to a neutral (non-smoking related) picture.

Jump to full article »

Mixed News on Tough-to-Treat Lung Cancer 

Dutch researchers report disappointing results from an early clinical trial of the drug Nexavar (sorafenib) in fighting a tough-to-treat form of lung cancer.

But, in better news, an experimental drug known as ganetespib showed promise in laboratory and animal experiments.

The results of both studies were to be presented Tuesday at an American Association for Cancer Research/International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer meeting in San Diego.

In recent years, researchers have made some headway in finding treatments to combat lung cancer, which often doesn't respond well to chemotherapy, explained Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

Those treatments include drugs such as crizotinib (Xalkori) and erlotinib (Tarceva), which are most effective in tumors that contain certain genetic mutations.

However, those drugs tend to not work well in people with tumors that contain a particular type of mutation in the KRAS gene. KRAS is the most common molecular mutation, present in about 25 percent of people with non-small cell lung cancers such as adenocarcinoma, particularly smokers, said Dr. Paul Bunn, a professor of lung cancer research at the University of Colorado and executive director of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer.

Jump to full article »

Smokers and the obese cheaper to care for, study shows 

It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.

"It was a small surprise," said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, who led the study. "But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more."

In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers. . . .

"This throws a bucket of cold water onto the idea that obesity is going to cost trillions of dollars," said Patrick Basham, a professor of health politics at Johns Hopkins University who was unconnected to the study.

Jump to full article »

• Young Smokers Light More Cigarettes While Seeing Someone Else Smoke 

Young people, aged 16 to 24, who smoke daily light up more cigarettes in the company of a smoking peer.

Unfortunately, anti-smoking campaigns neglect this effect, says NWO-funded researcher Zeena Harakeh.

Harakeh, a social scientist from Utrecht University, sought to determine what persuades young smokers to light up a cigarette. Her research showed that this group ultimately smokes more cigarettes when they see other young smokers.

“I call this implicit, passive influencing, as it happens without the other person actively offering a cigarette,” explains Harakeh.

Interestingly, young smokers who communicate with a peer online and see this person smoking will smoke more themselves. “So the effect is there even when they do not smell the cigarette scent of the other,” says Harakeh.

Jump to full article »

Smoking in Pregnancy Damages Arteries in Offspring  

Action Points

* Note that 54% of children in the U.S. have biochemical evidence of exposure to secondhand smoke, and children account for 28% of the deaths attributable to secondhand smoke.

* Note also that this study indicates that exposure of children to parental tobacco smoke during pregnancy affects both their arterial structure and arterial distensibility in early life.

Maternal smoking during pregnancy can lead to arterial damage detectable in the offspring at 5 years, yet three-quarters of parents of young children continued to smoke after participating in smoking cessation programs, researchers reported.

Children whose mothers smoked while pregnant had carotid artery intima-media thickness 18.8 µm thicker (95% CI 1.1 to 36.5, P=0.04) than those with no prenatal smoke exposure, according to Cuno S.P.M. Uiterwaal, MD, PhD, and colleagues from University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands.

Jump to full article »

Smoking During Pregnancy May Damage Children's Blood Vessels 

If women didn’t already have enough reasons to quit smoking before pregnancy, here’s a big one: Smoking during pregnancy may set their child up for blood vessel damage, a new study shows.

Dutch scientists enrolled more than 250 children. When the children were 4 weeks old, their body dimensions and lung function were measured. At the same time, their parents completed questionnaires about such factors as smoking during pregnancy.

When the children were 5, the researchers used ultrasound to measure the thickness and flexibility of their carotid arteries, large blood vessels in the neck that supply blood to the brain. They also collected updated smoking information from their parents.

The walls of the carotid arteries in 5-year-olds whose mothers had smoked throughout pregnancy were about 19 microns thicker -- about one to two times the thickness of a piece of cassette tape -- and 15% stiffer than those whose mothers had not smoked.

If both parents smoked while they were in the womb, the children’s carotid arteries were nearly 28 microns thicker and 21% stiffer than those of children whose parents didn’t smoke during pregnancy. These changes may indicate damage to blood vessels that may affect their function, the study authors suggest.

Jump to full article »

Parental Smoking and Vascular Damage in Their 5-year-old Children 

CONCLUSION: Exposure of children to parental tobacco smoke during pregnancy affects their arterial structure and function in early life.

Jump to full article »