Feature Channels: Smoking

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Between 2008 and 2014, more than 53 million people in 88 countries stopped smoking due to tobacco control measures, which means that more than 22 million smoking-related deaths have been averted, say researchers at the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. These conclusions update their 2013 landmark study that found tobacco control measures undertaken by 41 countries between 2007-2010 had prevented 7.4 smoking-related million deaths.

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Researchers from the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health were the senior scientific editors for the first-ever U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on E-Cigarette Use Among Youth and Young Adults, released today.

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Children exposed to secondhand marijuana smoke show measurable amounts of the drug in their bodies, a researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has found.

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Smoking may lead to fibrosis in the heart and kidneys and can worsen existing kidney disease, according to a new study. The research team suggests that exposure to cigarette smoke negatively affects genetic messaging that controls tissue scarring.

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Traditional cigarettes pose a well-established risk to smokers' health, but the effects of electronic cigarettes are still being determined. Helping to flesh out this picture, researchers are reporting in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology what happens to e-liquid flavorings when they're heated inside e-cigarettes or electronic nicotine-delivery systems. The study found that when converted into a vapor, some flavorings break down into toxic compounds at levels that exceed occupational safety standards.

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Cigarette smokers are at increased risk of complications after plastic surgery. Could e-cigarette users face a similar risk? Evidence and recommendations related to e-cigarette use by plastic surgery patients are discussed in a special topic paper in the December issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

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In the journal Tobacco Control, researchers report the results of a systematic review of 40 studies completed in the United States and internationally that looked at the impact of non-menthol tobacco flavors on consumers’ perceptions and tobacco use behaviors.

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More children are exposed to household tobacco smoke in early childhood, the greater their risk of adopting antisocial behavior toward others, engaging in proactive and reactive aggression, having conduct problems at school, and dropping out at age 12.

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Cancer is the leading cause of death in San Francisco and costs patients, families and taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Seeing an opportunity to change this, a group that includes UC San Francisco (UCSF), the City and County of San Francisco, the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), and health care and community organizations has launched the San Francisco Cancer Initiative (SF CAN), a major public health effort to reduce cancer in San Francisco.

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• In a study of patients with chronic kidney disease, nonsmokers and smokers who successfully quit had slower worsening of their kidney function than those who were unsuccessful at quitting. • Cigarette smoking partially negated the kidney-protective effects of patients’ medications. • Research that uncovered these findings will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2016 November 15–20 at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL.

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E-cigarette use among teenagers is growing dramatically, and public health experts are concerned that these devices may be a gateway to smoking. Now, new research indicates that even if these young e-cigarette users do not become tobacco smokers, e-cigarettes may harm their health.

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Researchers are a step closer to understanding why cigarette smoke exposure during pregnancy may increase the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). SIDS is the unexplained, sudden death of a child younger than one year of age. A new study finds that prenatal cigarette smoke exposure in rats affected breathing responses and immune function of their offspring. Breathing and immune function are further negatively affected by high room temperatures.

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Curiosity is a driving factor in why most kids start smoking, and the same is true for kids with asthma. A study presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting found adolescents with asthma were twice as likely to smoke as kids without asthma. And they continue to smoke well into their teen years, even though they know smoking is particularly bad for their lungs.

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Scientists stress need for thorough research into flavored e-liquids.

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The Quit & Stay Quit Monday goal is to use this year’s Great American Smokeout as the kickoff to kick the habit. In the weeks that follow, QSQM stands ready to provide proven tobacco cessation tips and tools to help quitters stay smoke free through the holidays and into the New Year. These resources are available for free at: www.quitmonday.org.

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Using prominent, graphic pictures on cigarette packs warning against smoking could avert more than 652,000 deaths, up to 92,000 low birth weight infants, up to 145,000 preterm births, and about 1,000 cases of sudden infant deaths in the U.S. over the next 50 years, say researchers from Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

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A paper published today in Science shows that smoking tobacco causes added mutations in the DNA of lung cells and in the DNA of other cells in the body. This is the first study to show the process by which smoking causes these cancers.

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A broad computational study of cancer genome sequences identifies telltale mutational signatures associated with smoking tobacco and demonstrates, for the first time, that smoking increases cancer risk by causing somatic mutations in tissues directly and indirectly exposed to tobacco smoke.

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Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed a new personalized assessment tool that could better predict lung cancer risk in never, light and heavy smokers using a large Taiwanese prospective cohort study.

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State actions to regulate retail sales of tobacco nearly doubled between 2012 and 2014, according to new research from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, but much of that activity involved e-cigarettes, perhaps the least harmful tobacco product.Researchers surveyed tobacco-control officials from 48 states in 2012 and again in 2014 to determine the extent of their policy activity at the retail level.

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Smoking as a social habit is increasingly on the nose for many in modern society, but the reverse is true when it comes to portraying strong female characters in French and Chinese cinema, according to researchers from the University of Adelaide.

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Undergoing a computer tomographic angiography was a better motivator to get people with suspected coronary artery disease to adopt healthier lifestyle practices than an exercise electrocardiography and stress test.

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Worsening depression symptoms are associated with shorter survival for lung cancer patients, particularly those in the early stages of disease, according to a new U.S. study.

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Many doctors and public health experts assume that people smoke cigarettes simply because they’re addicted to the nicotine.

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The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Houston Independent School District (HISD) have reached a first-of-its-kind agreement to provide access to an evidence-based, youth-oriented tobacco prevention and cessation program for all 110,000 HISD middle and high school students.

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Researchers from New York University’s College of Global Public Health and School of Medicine have published a new study on the growing epidemic of hookah use among America’s youth and young adults. As reported today in Nicotine & Tobacco Research, the research finds that current waterpipe use has doubled among US adults in a very short time span.

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A new series of research papers presents key findings of state and community tobacco control research to help guide state and community tobacco control policies and practices.

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Doctors and public health officials differ on the potential long-term effects of vaping and the use of e-cigarettes as smoking cessation tools. But they agree the devices shouldn't explode in your face.

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A scientific blueprint to end tobacco cravings may be on the way after researchers crystallized a protein that holds answers to how nicotine addiction occurs in the brain.

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A new national study shows for the first time how smoking bans in cities, states and counties led young people living in those areas to give up, or never take up, the use of cigarettes.

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A new biomarker has identified known and unknown exposure to second-hand smoke and confirmed a strong association to increased mortality in non-smokers, according to a new study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The results, published this month in the journal Carcinogenesis, provide a more accurate way to gauge second-hand smoke exposure than questionnaires, and present a strong case for more stringent limits on smoking and increased preventive screenings for those more likely to have been exposed to second-hand smoke.

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Everyone knows that tobacco products are bad for your health. However, according to research at Texas A&M, it turns out the nicotine itself—when given independently from tobacco—could help protect the brain as it ages, and even ward off Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease.

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BUFFALO, N.Y. — Roswell Park Cancer Institute scientists report that several flavorings added to electronic cigarettes impact the toxicity of the devices and that, among the tested flavors, strawberry was the most toxic. The researchers also confirmed an earlier finding that increasing the battery output voltage of these devices significantly increases toxicity. The study has been published online ahead of print in the journal Tobacco Control.

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New research shows that self-reported quit rates among hospital patients more than doubled when nurses and other staff were trained to coach patients on how to stop smoking and to make sure they got the help they needed to make it happen, whether that meant counseling, patches, gum or prescription medication.

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In this month’s release, find new embargoed research about: blood lead levels in children living in assisted-housing; medical marijuana laws and opioid use among fatally injured drivers; and e-cigarette advertisements’ cessation claims.

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Jonathan Samet, M.D., M.S. of the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, will tackle the issue of tobacco and health, explaining how solid research can drive gains in public health.

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By employing the same tactics it used to drive policymaking from the 1970s-1990s, the tobacco industry has become successful in influencing pro-industry e-cigarette laws at the state level, according to a UCSF study published in the September issue of Milbank Quarterly.

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Cells in the lung are constantly exposed to oxygen and intermittently exposed to other environmental factors, resulting in a susceptibility to oxidative injury. Both alcohol use disorders (AUDs) and cigarette smoking heighten pulmonary oxidative stress, likely due to antioxidant depletion. Pulmonary oxidative stress damages innate immunity, which can contribute to increased pneumonia susceptibility and severity. This study sought to understand whether measures of pulmonary oxidative stress in upper airway fluid are comparable to measures in the lower airways, and whether either compartment is preferentially affected by AUDs and/or smoking. If upper airways’ and lower airways’ oxidative stress indices are similar, less invasive methods to assess pulmonary oxidative stress, such as mini-bronchoalveolar lavage (mini-BAL) or sputum evaluations, could be used in research and clinical settings.

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An updated Cochrane Review published today provides an independent, rigorous assessment of the best available evidence to date about electronic cigarettes for quitting smoking.

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Researchers investigated how beliefs influence subjective craving and neural activities in nicotine-addicted individuals, discovering that belief about the presence of nicotine affects craving and brain activity, providing insights into the complex nature of belief–drug interactions.

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Acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, are associated with significant long-term lung function loss, according to research published online, ahead of print in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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When 28 distinguished individuals convened earlier this year to help shape the scientific mission at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of Vice President Joe Biden’s National Cancer Moonshot Initiative, they were given five months to draft guidelines to accelerate cancer research, prevention and care. On Wednesday, the National Cancer Advisory Board approved the Blue Ribbon Panel’s 10 recommendations.

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Users of both electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) and cigarettes may be more intent on quitting tobacco, but that intention seems to drop off among less educated smokers, according to a study by Georgia State University researchers published in the journal Addictive Behaviors.

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Luz Huntington-Moskos, Ph.D., R.N., C.P.N., UofL School of Nursing assistant professor, recently published findings in the journal Public Health Nursing that show the presence of children in the home did not motivate parents to test and mitigate for radon and secondhand tobacco smoke, both of which cause lung cancer.

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Banning tobacco sales within 1,000 feet of schools could reduce socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in tobacco density across neighborhoods, according to a study being published today in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research.