Health e News
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When smoking was banned from casinos in Colorado in the United States, ambulance calls to casinos in the area dropped about 20 percent, according to research reported in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. The drop in calls from casinos was similar to drops in ambulance calls from elsewhere two years earlier when Colorado banned smoking everywhere but casinos. How did the smoking ban lead to a reduction in ambulance calls? Partially by eliminating exposure to secondhand smoke, said Stanton Glantz, PhD, the study’s lead author. “Inhaling secondhand smoke increases the chances of blood clots than can block arteries and makes it more difficult for arteries to expand properly, changes that can trigger heart attacks,” said Glantz, director of the Centre for Tobacco Control Research and Education and professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco. “The calls may also have decreased due
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Maternal smoking can cause the third generation of offspring to suffer from asthma, a new study by Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre found. The study, published online by the American Journal of Physiology – Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, reported that maternal nicotine exposure during pregnancy is linked to asthma in the third generation in disease models. This is known as a “transgenerational” linkage because the third generation was never directly exposed to nicotine or smoking. Previous research had found nicotine exposure was linked to asthma in the second generation, or was a “multigenerational” cause of asthma. “Even though there are multiple causes for childhood asthma, research linking this serious chronic condition to maternal nicotine exposure during pregnancy for up to three generations should give mothers-to-be even more reasons to reconsider smoking,” said Virender K. Rehan, lead researcher of the study. “Eliminating the use of tobacco
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More Australian smokers said they wanted to quit smoking since their cigarettes were sold in drab green packs with graphic health warnings as prescribed by the plain packaging law implemented in the country last December. A study of 500 Australian smokers showed most believed their cigarettes were less satisfying and of lower quality than a year ago, with most also thinking more about quitting. The study was published in the British Medical Journal. “Smokers have been telling us that our new plain packaging and larger graphic health warnings are putting them off,” the Australian Health Minister, Tanya Plibersek said in a Reuters Health report. “And while tobacco companies haven’t changed the formula of their products, we’ve had feedback from smokers saying their cigarettes taste worse since the government’s required packaging to be plain.” Despite an increased intention to quit smoking, British American Tobacco (BAT) said that they haven’t seen any
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Menthol cigarettes are more dangerous than regular cigarettes. This is according to the results of a scientific review by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States, which, in light of these findings want to tighten regulation of menthol cigarettes. “Menthol cigarettes pose a public health risk above that seen with non-menthol cigarettes,” reads a report by the FDA, detailing preliminary results from the study they conducted. The report found that while menthol cigarettes are no more or less toxic than regular cigarettes, menthol’s cooling and anaesthetic properties can reduce the harshness of cigarette smoke, increasing their appeal to new smokers. “Menthol smokers show greater signs of nicotine dependence and are less likely to successfully quit smoking,” the FDA said. The FDA is currently investigating potential limits on the amount of menthol used in cigarettes, and how these products are marketed to the youth. However, anti-tobacco groups in
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You may be fooling yourself if you think that reducing the number of cigarettes you smoke will protect you from the health risks caused by smoking, new research published in the American Journal of Epidemiology suggest. For the study, researchers from the University of Glasgow, in Scotland, tracked two groups of smokers – the first included 1 524 working people who were tracked from the 1970s (when they were in their 40s, 50s and 60s) to 2010, and the other group included 3 730 people from the general population who were tracked for more or less the same period of time. The researchers found no difference overall in death rates between those who smoked and those who only cut down. In one of the studies, they found a lifespan benefit for those who cut down, but only among those who smoked 21 or more cigarettes per day. “These inconclusive results
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Scientists have discovered that so-called thirdhand smoke – the residue that clings to surfaces after tobacco was smoked in the space – causes genetic damage in human cells, according to a study published in the journal Mutagenesis. Humans can be exposed to thirdhand smoke through inhalation, ingestion or skin contact. “Tobacco-specific nitrosamines – chemical compounds in thirdhand smoke – are among the most potent carcinogens there are,” said the study co-author, Lara Gundel, a scientist from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States. “They stay on surfaces, and when those surfaces are clothing or carpets, the danger to children is especially serious.” Thirdhand smoke is particularly insidious because it is extremely difficult to eradicate. Studies have found that it can still be detected in dust and surfaces more than two months after someone smoked in an area. Common cleaning methods such as vacuuming, wiping and ventilation are not effective