Tobacco Articles: category health

11 North East people die every day due to smoking

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

SMOKING kills more than 11 people every day in the North East and it costs the region's economy over £210m a year, a new report has shown. Experts have today revealed for the first time the true cost of smoking to the region in lives lost, illness and the toll on finances. The latest research shows that 4,211 deaths were caused in the North East in 2010 as a result of smoking. That accounts for nearly one in five of all deaths among adults over 35. It is estimated that around every two hours, one person dies in our region from a smoking-related illness. Despite the North East seeing the largest drop in smoking in England over the past three years, it has one of the worst death rates in the country and the habit remains the region's biggest killer.

Twitter is harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol, study finds : People are more likely to give in to urge to tweet or check email than other cravings, say US researchers

science@guardian.co.uk ( James Meikle) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Tweeting or checking emails may be harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol, according to researchers who tried to measure how well people could resist their desires. They even claim that while sleep and sex may be stronger urges, people are more likely to give in to longings or cravings to use social and other media. A team headed by Wilhelm Hofmann of Chicago University's Booth Business School say their experiment, using BlackBerrys, to gauge the willpower of 205 people aged between 18 and 85 in and around the German city of Würtzburg is the first to monitor such responses "in the wild" outside a laboratory. The results will soon be published in the journal Psychological Science. . . . "With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs – long-term as well as monetary – and the opportunity may not always be the right one. So, even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still 'steal' a lot of people's time.".

Many Smoking-Cessation Failures Linked to Lack of Professional Help

name@domain.com ( Leslie Sinclair) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

American smokers want to kick the habit, but they do not seem to be getting the help they need from their health care professionals. Most smokers want to quit smoking, and more than half have tried to quit in the prior year. But those who are trying to quit aren’t receiving the help and support they need. According to a report in the November 11, 2011, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 68.8 percent of current cigarette smokers said they would like to stop smoking completely, and 52.4 percent had tried to quit smoking in the preceding year. But 68.3 percent of the smokers who tried to quit did so without using evidence-based cessation counseling or medications, and only 48.3 percent of those who had visited a health care professional in the prior year reported receiving advice on how to quit smoking. The report was published in conjunction with the annual Great American Smokeout, observed last year on November 17. The Smokeout, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, urges smokers to use the date to make a plan to quit or to plan in advance and quit smoking that day.

FISCHER: Guest Viewpoint: Smoking is a burden on health care

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

I would like to address online comments made in response to the Dec. 24 letter to the editor titled "Tobacco prevention funds pay off in time." A common misconception is that smoking pays for "kiddy health care." "Kiddy health care" is what some people call the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which is a federally administered program that provides matching funds to cover uninsured children in families with incomes that are modest but too high to qualify for Medicaid. Taxes received by New York from the sale of tobacco and money paid by the tobacco companies to 46 states as outlined in the Master Settlement Agreement — commonly known as tobacco settlement money — are put in the state's general fund and used along with money from many other sources to run the state government. Although these two sources of tobacco-generated revenue totaled $2.2 billion for the state in 2010, they don't begin to cover the cost to treat people with smoking-related illnesses. In contrast to the $2.2 billion that the state received from tobacco in 2010, that same year $8.2 billion was spent in New York to cover health care costs directly caused by smoking, with $5.4 billion coming from the Medicaid program. If smoking ceased and we no longer used Medicaid money to treat smoking-related diseases, New York would have $3.2 billion more to fund "kiddy health care," not the other way around. . . . The key message is that tobacco use not only takes a terrible toll on the health of our family and friends, it also costs taxpayers a large amount of money. Each household in New York has a tax burden of $884 per year in state and federal taxes from smoking-caused government expenditures — a fact too often forgotten when people think only of the revenue that tobacco provides.

The true cost of smoking

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

A STAGGERING one-in-four people in Hartlepool smoke – with £3.7m spent every year treating them. And shocking figures also reveal 254 pregnant women were still smoking at the time they gave birth last year. A “stark” report by anti-smoking lobby FRESH also revealed: • 18,000 people regularly smoke in Hartlepool. That’s 24.7 per cent of the adult population; • Around 164 people die each year in the town from smoking; • 23 per cent of Hartlepool women were recorded as smoking at the time they gave birth in the last year; • The cost of hospital admissions to treat smoking-related problems is £1.9m a year. And yet there’s still good news too because Hartlepool has one of the best records in the country for getting smokers to quit.

What 2012 Has in Store for Star Scientific (CIGX)

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT

As I discussed last month, Star Scientific put in solid gains in 2011 as the company got out in front of a shift toward cigarette alternatives. But increasingly, tobacco giants Altria (NYSE: MO ) and Reynolds American (NYSE: RAI ) have made pushes into the smokeless tobacco realm, threatening to take away any moat that Star Scientific may have started to build. Can the small company make good on its full potential and bring an even bigger payday for shareholders in 2012? Below, I'll take a closer look at what people expect from Star Scientific and its rivals. . . . Even with those patents, tobacco will continue to be competitive, and Star Scientific will keep facing potential threats from Reynolds and Altria domestically. As international regulation starts to have a bigger impact on Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM ) and British American Tobacco (AMEX: BTI ) , Star may have new opportunities there as well. But even with some things in its favor, Star will still need to fight hard to keep an edge and repeat 2011's strong stock performance. If you'd rather just skip the tobacco industry entirely, let us point you to an alternative. In its latest special report, you can learn the name of The Motley Fool's top stock for 2012.

Ask the vet's pets: Secondhand smoke increases risk of pet getting cancer

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Dr. Lee Pickett Dear Christopher Cat: My veterinarian claimed she smelled cigarette smoke on my cat's fur, and she recommended I quit smoking or smoke outdoors. She said my smoking would give my cat cancer, but she strikes me as a nonsmoking zealot on a mission. What are the facts? Christopher responds: Research results support your vet's recommendation. When you smoke, most of the cigarette's toxins settle on the furniture and the floor. When your cat dozes there, the toxins cling to her fur. Thus, she ingests the toxins when she grooms herself . . . You already know that smoking increases your own risk of disease and makes your clothing and hair smell bad. So give yourself the gift of fresh air and thank your veterinarian for helping both you and your cat get healthy.

Smoking and Risk of Incident Psoriasis Among Women and Men in the United States: A Combined Analysis: Am. J. Epidemiol. (2012) doi: 10.1093/aje/kwr325 First published online: January 12, 2012

journals.permissions@oup.com — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

The authors observed a graded reduction of risk with an increase in time since smoking cessation (Ptrend <0.0001). In this study, smoking was found to be an independent risk factor for psoriasis in both women and men. Psoriasis risk was particularly augmented for heavy smokers and persons with longer durations of smoking.

Smoking tied to higher psoriasis risk

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

But most have studied people at only one time-point, which makes it hard to be sure the smoking came before the psoriasis. So for the new study, researchers used data from three large, long-running studies of U.S. health professionals. Of nearly 186,000 men and women followed for 12 to 20 years, 2,410 developed psoriasis during that time. And the risk was greater among both current smokers and former smokers. People who were current smokers at the study's start were almost twice as likely as lifelong non-smokers to develop psoriasis. And past smokers had a 39 percent higher risk than non-smokers. The findings, reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology, do not prove that smoking, itself, causes psoriasis in some people. But it is clear that the smoking came before the psoriasis, said senior researcher Dr. Abrar A. Qureshi, of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Past studies have found links between psoriasis and both obesity and heavy drinking. But after accounting for those factors, the smoking-psoriasis link remained, Qureshi told Reuters Health. "I think if there's one message, it's that for now, smoking seems to be a risk factor for new-onset psoriasis," Qureshi said.

LETTER OF THE DAY - Kill smoking habit before it kills you

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

A man walked into a store holding his little girl's hand and continued to smoke his cigarette. The sales agent greeted him and asked him why he was smoking in the presence of the child. He replied, "A nuh nutt'n, everybody a do it: me a do it, her mama a do it, a nuh nutt'n. She betta get used to it!" What do you think? Is it 'nutt'n' when, according to the World Health Organisation: 1. One out of every three cancer deaths is caused by tobacco use? . . . Persons who need assistance to quit smoking and business operators who need assistance to establish a smoke-free environment policy for their business may contact the Jamaica Cancer Society at 927-4265. You will not say "a nuh nutt'n" when you get sick. Tobacco control leads to cancer control and heart-disease control. Play your part, whether you are in Government, a resident or business person in Jamaica. You have the power to do so!

Lung cancer on the rise among Dutch women

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

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."

AUDIO: WATER PIPE SMOKING: Health Check, 01/02/2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

At the European Society of Cardiology's meeting at the Saudi Heart Association's Annual Conference in Riyadh Professor Hani Najm suggested that water pipes are contributing to a time-bomb of heart disease in the Gulf States.

Can tobacco be used to cure cancer? : Childhood brain cancer the focus of a new research project

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

In a Toronto laboratory, an experiment on mice is seeking to answer a question that could turn conventional wisdom on its head: Can tobacco cure cancer? The plant best known for its negative health effects has been genetically engineered to create a drug comparable to Herceptin that could one day be used to treat highly aggressive breast cancers at a lower cost. That development is part of a plant-based trend in pharmaceuticals. It is based on the belief that proteins can be made faster, cheaper and easier, allowing patients in remote parts of the world to gain access to medicines once unaffordable. And it's not just tobacco. Plants being tested as biological drugs sound like they belong not in the laboratory but in the vegetable section at the health-food store: carrots for Gaucher's disease, duckweed - those green flecks on top of ponds - to treat hepatitis C, and safflower to make insulin.

Smoking on the rise despite five years of France's public smoking ban: More French people smoke today than when smoking was banned in public places five years ago

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

France's anti-smoking laws have failed to reduce the number of smokers and are often ignored but they have reduced the risk of cancer for barmen and waiters, officials announced on the fifth anniversary of the introduction of a ban on smoking in public places. Smoking was banned in French workplaces, schools, hospitals and stations on 1 February and in bars, restaurants, casinos and discotheques 11 months later. But it has not persuaded people to stop smoking, figures released Tuesday showed. The proportion of 18-75-year-olds who are regular smokers has risen two points to 30 per cent since 2005. That is mainly because more women are smoking - 28.7 per cent smoked every day in 2010, compared to 26.9 per cent in 2005. "The biggest problem with the French prohibition is the lack of control," Maria Cardenas of France's Non-Smokers' Rights told RFI.

Lung Cancer Becomes an Epidemic in Greece

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

In spite of stricter laws banning smoking in public places, including cafes, bars and nightclubs, that have been enforced since 2010, deaths due to lung cancer in Greece show no sign of abating, and actually rose in 2011, scientists reported. The figures showed that there were still 7,000 deaths related to lung cancer every year in Greece, with scientists noting that the disease has become a public health problem of epidemic proportions. The number of incidents treated by cancer clinics in public hospitals has increased over the last year - an increase attributed to both a rise in the number of incidents and the economic crisis that sends people that would have otherwise sought private health care to the public health system. Cases at the 'Sotiria' Hospital cancer clinic have increased by 24-30 percent as a result, while lung cancer remains the top cause of death among both men and women, surpassing breast cancer for the latter. The figures were presented during a press conference to announce the 2nd International Conference on Lung Cancer "From the Laboratory to Clinical Practice" that will be held in Athens on February 3-4.