No More Tobacco

Computerized Program Helps Teens Quit Smoking… Medical News Today reported that according to a new study by Deborah J. Fritz, PhD, smoking cessation programs are helping youths stop smoking. According to the CDC, 22% of high school students and 10% of middle school children smoke in America. The habit is considered an epidemic. Fritz and her co-authors report in the January-February 2008 issue of Pediatric Nursing, that the Computerized Adolescent Smoking Cessation Program (CASCP) is effective in getting teenagers to quit, inexpensive, and easily implemented in schools.

With use of this program they found that 1 month after the intervention, 20% of the experimental group quit smoking. This is a great step in the fight against tobacco. As well, this shows how well cessation programs can work. “The encouraging results show the CASCP program does work and that such programs should be implemented in schools whenever possible.”, says Fritz. Nurses play a key role in recruiting adolescents into smoking cessation programs and/or referring them to agencies such as the American Lung Association for help. view source

National No Smoking Day 2008…National No Smoking Day 2008. Today March 12th. A day that will hopefully lead millions of smokers to put them down for good. If not for good, at least for one day. If you are a smoker today is the day to lay the cigarettes down. Even quitting for a day, the dangers of secondhand smoke are eliminated from the lungs of your loved ones, also giving your lungs a chance to start to repair themselves. If you are thinking about quitting, know this, your lungs start repairing themselves the instant you quit smoking. Do yourself, your friends and family, and the whole world a favor, quit smoking and help someone else quit too. Have a wonderful National No Smoking Day 2008 from NoMoreTobacco.com !!

Best Days To Quit Smoking… We often go about random tasks, that are not routine, like quitting smoking, very arbitrarily. Maybe there is a better alternative. While leafing through a Farmers Almanac, noticed was the fact that they have a list of the best days of the month to do these random tasks, astrologically. Included was the best days of the month to quit smoking. 

BEST DAYS TO QUIT SMOKING IN March : 1, 2, 5, 6, 21, 22, 28, 29

If you know someone on the fence about quitting, let them know about these days, maybe it will help them kick the habit. It could very well save lives.

Smoking Is Major Risk Factor For Stroke In China, accounting for about one in seven strokes in men, researchers reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

“This study shows that smoking prevention and cessation could be an important approach to reducing the societal burden of stroke,” said Jiang He, M.D., Ph.D., senior author of the study. 

Many studies in western populations have shown that cigarette smoking is a strong and independent risk factor for stroke. But the relationship between cigarette smoking and stroke hasn’t been well-studied in Asian populations - including China, where stroke is the second leading cause of death.

“The study findings were consistent with reports from other populations, but in China this risk creates a huge public health problem,” said He, the Joseph S. Copes Chair and professor of epidemiology at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, La. “In addition to being the world’s most populous nation, China is the world’s leading producer and consumer of cigarettes.” reported originally by Medical News Today. view source

It’s Never Too Late To Quit… Medical News Today reported an interesting article. Many people spend a lifetime trying to give up smoking, but there is good news for older smokers from research carried out at the Peninsula Medical School in South West England. A study by Dr. Iain Lang and his colleagues has revealed that the point of retirement is one of the most effective times to try to give up smoking. view source

March 9th, 2008 No Smoking Day in the U.K…. March 9th marks this year’s day for going smoke-free in the U.K.  It is only one day, but if everyone quit smoking for just the one day, some of them might see, they can quit…forever! Simple idea really, pick a random day out of the year and and call it no smoking day, thereby potentially savings thousands or millions of lives (after you factor in the secondhand smoke effects). So tell all of your U.K. buddy’s to put the smokes away for the day. Don’t worry Americans your day is Wednesday, March 12, 2008.

Happy No Smoking Day

Stem Cells Prevented From Becoming Cartilage By Toxins In Cigarette Smoke… reported originally by Medical News Today. A toxic pollutant spread by oil spills, forest fires and car exhaust is also present in cigarette smoke, and may represent a second way in which smoking delays bone healing, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society in San Francisco.

In 2005, researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center identified one ingredient in smoke, nicotine, that delays bone growth by influencing gene expression in the two-step bone healing process: stem cells become cartilage; cartilage matures into bone. In the current study, some of the same researchers found that a second smoke ingredient, the polyaromatic hydrocarbon benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), also slows bone healing, but in a different way.

Smoking has been shown to delay skeletal healing by as much as 60 percent following fractures. Slower healing means a greater chance of re-injury and can lead to chronic pain and disability. The obvious solution is for smokers to quit when they get hurt, but studies show that just 15 percent can.

“Our results provide the first evidence that BaP prevents stem cells from becoming cartilage cells as part of healing,” said Regis J. O’Keefe, M.D., PhD., chair of the Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation at the Medical Center and a study investigator. “These findings extend our understanding of the impact of cigarette smoke on a process that is critical to fracture repair. Perhaps down the road we will be able to speed bone healing among smokers in more than one way.”  view source

New Study: How Cigarette Smoke Causes Cancer… Medical News Today reported that everyone has known for decades that smoking causes cancer, but until now no one really understood how cigarette smoke causes healthy lung cells to become cancerous. Researchers from the University of California, Davis, show that hydrogen peroxide in cigarette smoke causes lung cancer. This finding may help the tobacco industry develop “safer” cigarettes by eliminating such substances in the smoke, while giving medical researchers a new avenue to developing lung cancer treatments. view source

Secondhand Smoke A Risk For Children Worldwide…Medical News Today reported that parents worldwide are doing little to protect their children from exposure to secondhand smoke, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Exposure to secondhand smoke has been extensively shown to increase the risk for numerous illnesses and premature death. The household study, conducted in 31 countries, found that 82 percent of parents who smoked reported smoking around their children. Measurements of nicotine levels from household air and children’s hair samples also indicated high exposure to secondhand smoke among those living with a smoker. The study is among the first to demonstrate that secondhand smoke is a global concern, particularly for children. It was published on February 28 in the online version of the American Journal of Public Health and will appear in the journal’s April 2008 print edition.

According to the findings, concentrations of nicotine in the air were 17 times higher in households with a smoker compared to those without. Air concentrations were 12.9 times higher in households that permitted smoking indoors, compared to those that voluntarily restricted indoor smoking. Median air nicotine levels in households with smokers were highest in Europe, followed by Latin America and Asia.

Nicotine was detected in hair samples in 78 percent of children living with a smoker and 59 percent of those who did not live with a smoker. In most cases, hair nicotine levels were positively correlated with nicotine air concentrations. view source

France: Heart Attack Rates Drop Following National Smoking Ban… Medical News Today reported that Statistics show that since a smoking ban took effect in France a year ago, admissions of patients with myocardial infarction dropped 15 percent at emergency wards. French health authorities told the National Sanitary Institute that there was a 15 percent decrease in admissions of patients with heart attack and stroke to hospitals since the smoking ban in restaurants, hotels and casinos was implemented January 2007.  view source