Professor Peter Furness, President of the Royal College of Pathologists commenting on the Tobacco Advisory Group of Royal College of Physicians report, Passive Smoking and Children, said: The Royal College of Pathologists fully endorses this report. The prevalence of diseases - such as asthma - in children exposed to passive smoking is of great concern...
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced awards of more than $372 million to 44 communities, to support public health efforts to reduce obesity and smoking, increase physical activity and improve nutrition...
An article published Online First in The Lancet Oncology reports that variations in a gene called GPC5 have been identified. They might contribute to a significantly higher risk of developing lung cancer in people who have never smoked...
Telephone counseling programs for smoking cessation, popularly known as "quitlines," are an increasingly common way for smokers to quit. Every state in the U.S. now has one. However, most of them provide counseling services in English and Spanish only. The only quitline so far to offer counseling in multiple Asian languages is the California Smokers' Helpline...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a final rule containing a broad set of federal requirements designed to significantly curb access to and the appeal of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to children and adolescents in the United States. Published March 19, 2010, the new rule becomes effective June 22, 2010, and has the force and effect of law...
We're pleased that Congress has taken another significant step in reducing tobacco use in the U.S. with passage of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act of 2009. This measure will support ongoing efforts to protect children and adults from heart disease, stroke and other chronic illnesses linked to tobacco use...
The new Food and Drug Administration rule is an important step towards breaking the cycle of addiction and preventing children from developing a deadly habit. Too often, children are swayed by insidious marketing campaigns from the tobacco industry that encourage them to adopt a destructive lifestyle...
Researchers in Australia have demonstrated that blocking a certain protein can reduce or prevent cigarette smoke-induced lung inflammation in mice. Inflammation underlies the disease process of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and many other smoking-related ailments...
Babies born to mothers with obesity and exposed to passive smoking are more likely to have health problems than others. This conclusion is based on evidence of elevated levels of nucleated red blood cells in the umbilical cord reported in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health...
Although many smokers try to quit by selecting a "quit day" and going cold turkey, a new Cochrane review finds that quitting gradually might work just as well. The authors evaluated 10 studies with 3,760 participants and studies had a minimum six-month follow-up period...
Older people who have never smoked benefit most from smoking bans, a study suggests. A study in New Zealand showed that, three years after a smoking ban on all workplaces was introduced, hospital admissions for heart attacks among men and women aged 55-74 fell by 9 per cent. This figure rose to 13 per cent for 55-74 year olds who had never smoked...
Public health guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published today (Wednesday 24 February) focuses specifically on school-based methods to prevent children and young people from starting to smoke. One in two long-term smokers will die prematurely as a result of smoking, and half of these deaths will be in middle age...
Moving to Canada could be hazardous for the health of young immigrants. A new study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health has found that over time, immigrant children from multiethnic, disadvantaged, inner-city neighbourhoods are up to 3.5 times more likely to smoke. The findings are important since an estimated 45,000 school-aged children immigrate to Canada with their parents each year...
Almost three months after the University of Kentucky became tobacco-free, more than 100 people are enrolled in UK's individual or group tobacco treatment programs, and more than 50 are taking advantage of UK's free nicotine replacement therapy...
A new survey has found that African-Americans are more likely than whites to hold mistaken and fatalistic beliefs about lung cancer, as well as being more reluctant to consult a doctor about possible symptoms of the disease, according to researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and their collaborators...
The most comprehensive study to date of secondhand smoke exposure among children in England is published in the journal Addiction. The study, carried out by researchers from the University of Bath's School for Health, reveals that exposure to household secondhand smoke among children aged 4-15 has declined steadily since 1996...
While lower intelligence scores - as reflected by low results on written or oral tests of IQ - have been associated with a raised risk of cardiovascular disease, no study has so far compared the relative strength of this association with other established risk factors such as obesity, smoking and high blood pressure...
Nicotine in third-hand smoke, the residue from tobacco smoke that clings to virtually all surfaces long after a cigarette has been extinguished, reacts with the common indoor air pollutant nitrous acid to produce dangerous carcinogens. This new potential health hazard was revealed in a multi-institutional study led by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)...
Asthma is the most common chronic illness affecting Latino children in the United States, and secondhand smoke is a serious contributing factor. Now a new study from The Miriam Hospital's Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine and Brown University suggests that clinically-based smoking cessation programs may not be enough to help Latino smokers with asthmatic children kick the habit...
Asthma is the most common chronic illness affecting Latino children in the United States, and secondhand smoke is a serious contributing factor. Now a new study from The Miriam Hospital's Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine and Brown University suggests that clinically-based smoking cessation programs may not be enough to help Latino smokers with asthmatic children kick the habit...
