Find Me A Cure

Smokers who say they just can’t quit are sometimes told to at least cut down. But even if they reduce their intake by half or more, they are unlikely to see much benefit, a new study reports.

The study, which appears in the journal Tobacco Control, followed the health of more than 50,000 Norwegian smokers over more than two decades.

The subjects, men and women ages 20 to 49 at the start of the research in the mid-1970s, were screened once at the start of their involvement and again after 3 to 13 years. A smaller group was screened a third time. On average, the researchers kept track of each participant for about 20 years.

The researchers found that those who reduced their cigarette intake by 50 percent or more did not have a better mortality rate from all causes of death than heavier smokers did. They did not even do better when it came to diseases specifically associated with smoking.

“In health education and patient counseling,” the researchers wrote, “it may give people false expectations to advise that reduction in consumptions is associated with reduction in harm.”

They did say that cutting back probably had value as an interim step to quitting smoking.

It is unclear why those who cut back did not seem to be healthier. One possibility, the study said, is that to compensate for the cigarettes they give up, smokers inhale smoke more deeply and smoke more of each cigarette.

Source:The New York Times

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Nov 24, 2006 — NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Children who go to swimming pools on a regular basis may be at risk for developing hay fever in adulthood, German researchers report.

Dr. Y. Kohlhammer, from the GSF-National Research Center for Environment and Health in Neuherberg, and colleagues speculate that the chlorination by-products at swimming pools may damage the lining of the lungs, allowing closer contact to allergens and increasing the risk of hay fever.

They surveyed 2,606 adults between 35 and 74 years of age. Personal interviews and questionnaires were used to gather detailed information about medical history and swimming pool attendance.

Subjects who attended a chlorinated swimming pool 3 to 11 times each year at school age were 74 percent more likely to develop hay fever than those who never attended a pool at school age, the findings indicate.

Recent exposure to a chlorinated swimming pool also increased the risk of hay fever. Subjects who reported exposure to a pool more than once a week for the last 12 months were 32 percent more likely to have hay fever than non-exposed individuals.

Lastly, subjects who reported any lifetime exposure to chlorinated swimming pools were 65 percent more likely to have hay fever than individuals with no exposure.

The associations with both recent and school-age pool attendance appeared to be dose-related, the authors point out.

The new findings are consistent with past research linking exposure to chlorinated swimming pools with lung “hyperpermeability,” as well as exercise-induced cough and higher asthma rates, the team notes in the journal Allergy.

“Hay fever is a disease with numerous potential influencing aspects, including lifestyle changes, environmental factors, allergen exposure and immunology. Contact with chlorination by-products might not be the leading reason for higher frequencies of hay fever, especially in adults, but might make up an important contribution to this multifactorial disease,” the authors conclude.

SOURCE: Allergy, November 2006.

LONDON: Future smokers may be programmed in the womb to take up the habit later in life, research published on Tuesday said.

Scientists in Australia have discovered that children of women who smoked during pregnancy were more likely to become smokers than other youngsters. They suggest nicotine from cigarettes passes through the placenta and may act directly on the developing brain of the unborn child.

“Our findings suggest a direct effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy on young adults’ development of regular smoking and provide yet another incentive to persuade pregnant women not to smoke and to discourage young women from ever taking it up,”Abdullah Al Mamun, of the University of Queensland, said in the study published in the journal Tobacco Control.

The researchers studied the smoking patterns of more than 3,000 mothers and their children who took part in a long-term study in Brisbane, Australia. Children of the 1,000 women who had smoked during pregnancy were three times more likely to start smoking by the age of 14 and twice as likely afterwards compared to other children.

The researchers said their results were consistent with findings of earlier studies into the impact of smoking during pregnancy on the child.

The charity Action on Smoking and Health welcomed the research, saying it stresses the importance of health education and of dissuading all women of child-bearing age from smoking.

“It does seem there is a pharmacological influence on the developing fetus which underlines yet again the importance of women stopping smoking as soon as they know they are pregnant,”a spokesperson said.

Source:The Times Of India