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Tobacco acts as a precipitating factor for headaches, specifically migraines, new research suggests. This is indicated in a study which shows that smokers have more migraine attacks and that smoking more than five cigarettes a day triggers this headache. The work has appeared in the Journal of Headache and Pain.
The influence of tobacco as a precipitating, non-causal factor of migraine attacks has produced contradictory data in scientific literature. The limited research prior to the work published in The Journal of Headache and Pain indicated that smoking could improve migraines by reducing anxiety, one of the factors that triggers an attack.
"This study is groundbreaking in Spain as there are few studies on this topic, and all are very biased. This is due to the complexity and need for prior training of the participants", Julio Pascual, one of the authors of this research and doctor at the Neurology Unit of Marqués de Valdecilla, University Hospital (Santander), explains to SINC.
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Iowa's largest apartment complex is making nearly 25 percent of its 1,076 apartments smoke-free, owner Keith Denner said Tuesday.
The move is designed to improve the health and safety of residents, said Denner, who owns and manages the Sun Prairie and Vista Court Apartments in West Des Moines, which are adjacent to each other and include 40 buildings.
"This is supply-side economics at its best," said Bonnie Mapes, director of the Iowa Division of Tobacco Use Prevention and Control.
"This is not government-driven. It's a business decision"
A 17th century pub near where Sir Walter Raleigh is rumoured to have first smoked a pipe of tobacco is to run a stop-smoking course.
The Long Arms in South Wraxall near Bradford-on-Avon, in Wiltshire, is just two fields away from South Wraxall Manor, where legend has it tobacco was smoked for the first time in England.
Landlady Jacqui Price, who has run the pub with her husband Bob for the past four years, is signing up to the sessions along with head chef Dan Hinds. The scheme will be run for customers in the autumn.
Sir Walter is said to have been the first to bring tobacco to Britain from the New World in the late 16th century, and a maid at South Wraxall Manor reputedly doused him in water after thinking he was on fire as he puffed away on his pipe.
But The Long Arms has been badly hit by the nationwide smoking ban, introduced in England in July 2007, and is now also suffering as a result of the credit crunch.
The Board of Health wants to introduce a new anti-smoking amendment, but they wants the the public's opinion first.
New Yorkers are being called upon to give their opinion in a public hearing on July 30 on a new Health Code amendment that would put graphic anti-smoking warnings wherever tobacco products are sold. The warnings would include images depicting the adverse health effects of smoking and information on how to quit.
The measure, which is expected to be voted on in September, would require tobacco retailers to display these "point-of-sale warnings and cessations messages" wherever tobacco products are displayed and at the point of purchase is made, such as a cash register.
According to the Health Department, these displays will force the customer to see the health effects of smoking and visually contemplate their tobacco purchase. They say the signage also promotes a greater understanding of the toll tobacco takes on the body and encourage current smokers to quit.
"While the tobacco industry spends billions of dollars every year to glamorize smoking, we will show New Yorkers the harsh realities," Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley, stated, "These warning signs will help persuade smokers to quit and show children why they shouldn't start smoking."
While the tobacco industry spends billions of dollars every year to glamorize smoking, we will show New Yorkers the harsh realities. These warning signs will help persuade smokers to quit and show children why they shouldn't start smoking.NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley, on the Board of Health proposal to put graphic anti-smoking warnings wherever tobacco products are sold.
Let me applaud the stand on the tobacco issue taken in this congressional vote by Sens. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Reps. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow, and Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville. . . .
As a young man who grew up in the tobacco fields, as a family practitioner who for 25 years depended on tobacco farmers for income for years and did not recognize the deleterious effects of tobacco, I am proud of my what representatives did.
In 1952, I was hired by the tobacco companies to do research on tobacco. Working with and under the direction of renowned doctors in toxicology and physics, we found in four experiments that nicotine had a strong relationship to the causes of many health problems. Not knowing at the time that my pay came from the Tobacco Institute, I soon found that we would not be allowed to publish our results.
[If] those people addicted to tobacco live a few years longer, they will see the death rate from lung cancer decrease. For nonsmokers who regularly breathe nicotine-containing smoke, their quality of life will begin improving almost immediately.
We think the worst-case scenario for the industry under FDA regulation would be a reduction in the amount of nicotine, the addictive component of cigarettes, being forced upon manufacturers. However, it is likely that industry stakeholders would pressure the FDA not to implement such a measure. Just as smokers are addicted to tobacco companies' products, governments are addicted to the tax revenue the products generate. We estimate that total excise tax and MSA payments will be well in excess of $40 billion in 2009, or around 1% of all local, state, and federal taxes collected, and around two thirds of all excise tax receipts. In the case of the MSA payments to states, the states have in many cases already securitized that revenue and therefore are heavily reliant on the payments being made.
The risk of litigation still lingers over the domestic tobacco industry, although it has subsided significantly in the past few years. We expect financial penalties to arise periodically, but we think damages will be manageable.
We think the downward pressure on tobacco stocks over the past 18 months has presented investors with an opportunity to buy the industry leaders. We think Altria has the widest moat in the industry, with a vast distribution network and collection of strong brands. . . .
Although we think Lorillard's Newport is a very strong brand, the firm's exposure to the menthol category is a concern to us, given the threat hanging over that sector. We expect Reynolds American to underperform the industry because it has an older core customer demographic and we expect it to discontinue some of its peripheral brands.
Emerging economies such as Eastern Europe, Africa, and parts of Asia still offer growth opportunities. . . .
We think the best way to exploit the growth opportunities in international tobacco markets is with an investment in the industry leader, Philip Morris. The firm owns Marlboro in international markets, the only true global brand . . .
We rate British American Tobacco similarly to Philip Morris: Both have wide economic moats, both have only a medium uncertainty rating, and their dividend yields are also closely matched, BAT at 4.5% and Philip Morris at 4.9%.
The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has introduced a new proposal [pdf] that would require the 12,000 or so cigarette retailers in the city to put large antismoking signs at the cash register and where the cigarettes are displayed, the first such regulation in the United States.
"It's really about getting them at the point-of-sale moment," said Sarah B. Perl, the health department’s assistant commissioner for tobacco control.
Cigarette advertising dominates the retail outlets, and the city wants to balance that message. "We want them to also think about the consequences about what it will do to them," Ms. Perl said.
Similar sign requirements have been made in Canada, New Zealand and Australia, she said, but these would be the first with a graphic element. They have found visually displaying gruesome health effects -- like amputations and throat cancer -- have been the most effective way to generate calls from New Yorkers who want to quit.
The images will be rotated so they can stay "fresh, crisp and impactful," said Ms. Perl, who noted people have become inured to the surgeon general's warning on cigarette packs because it has not changed since it has never changed. . . .
"This type of signage which communicates purely factual information about a commercial transaction is legal," she said.
Langley RCMP handed out their first ticket recently to a driver caught smoking with a child in the car.
The man was pulled over while he was smoking with a 13-year-old in the car. The driver was handed a ticket with a $109 fine and also was given a 24-hour suspension for driving under the influence of alcohol.
The man's name was not released by police.
Langley RCMP Cpl. Holly Marks believes it was one of the first tickets of its kind handed out in B.C.
"The wife was in the car and she was not upset that he got a ticket," she explained Wednesday. "She told the officer she had been trying to get her husband to stop smoking in the car."
Native Americans from all over the U.S. are in Middle Georgia this week, and they are declaring a war--a war on the negative use of tobacco. The group camped in Mile Branch River Park in Pulaski County for the three-day national summit.
Native Americans came from Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma and Colorado to teach their younger generation how to value tobacco, and not abuse it.
Inter-Tribal Council Member Dr. Dewey Painter says he knows first hand that commercial use of the drug is destroying the lives of Native Americans everywhere.
Lancaster County District Judge Jodi Nelson on Wednesday denied a pool hall's request for a restraining order against the Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act, which went into effect June 1.
Attorney Theodore Boecker Jr., who represents Big John Billiards Inc., claimed in a lawsuit filed in May against the state of Nebraska that the law was unconstitutional. . . .
Boecker argued in the lawsuit that the cigar bar exemption favored certain businesses with longtime tobacco ties while harming others like, for instance, the traditionally "smoke-filled pool hall." He said the court should strike down the entire ban and let Big John's operate as it normally did prior to June 1.
Connecticut is ranked dead last in a program to stop smoking, spending less than two-percent of our tobacco revenue on smoking programs. Medicaid does not cover any programs to help stop smoking and the state's quit line was shut down.
Grace Bechard, of Waterbury, smoked at least a pack a day for over 50-years and started pretty early on. . . .
But never, not once, did she get help from the state. In fact, she didn't know that was even a possibility. It was something the Attorney General said we should be ashamed of.
"We have missed a historic opportunity to save lives and save dollars," said Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.
Connecticut was one of the first states to go after big tobacco companies. Attorney General Blumenthal was among the Attorney Generals . . .
"It was not a requirement of the settlement or of the lawsuit that any of the money be spent on specific smoking prevention or cessation programs," said Jeffrey Beckham.
Beckham is the undersecretary of the State's Office of Policy & Management. And he's right; we're not required to spend any of that money on programs to stop smoking. . . .
One of the major tobacco companies has been lobbying hard in-state, calling legislators and trying to get them to pull all the money from the stop smoking programs this year.
It is unclear what will be included in this year's final budget.