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Smoking Doesn’t Make You Happy

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If you think that smoking is one of the few pleasures left to you, think again. Going by a study, puffing does not make people happy.

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Researchers at Peninsula Medical School in Britain have found that smokers experience lower average levels of pleasure and life satisfaction compared with non-smokers, the ScienceDaily has reported.

According to lead researcher Dr Iain Lang, “We found no evidence to support the claim that smoking is associated with pleasure, either in people from lower socio-economic groups or in the general population.

“People may feel like they’re getting pleasure when they smoke a cigarette but in fact smokers are likely to be less happy overall — the pleasure they feel from having a smoke comes only because they’re addicted.

The researchers came to the conclusion after looking at the relationship between smoking and psychological wellbeing of a group of around 1,000 people, aged 50 or above.

They used a measure of quality of life called CASP-19 and found that smokers experienced lower average levels of pleasure and life satisfaction compared with non-smokers.

The studies for the research categorised people as never-smokers, ex-smokers and current smokers, and used household wealth as an indicator for socio-economic position.

“These results show smoking doesn’t make you happy — in fact, it is associated with poorer overall quality of life.

“Anyone thinking of giving up smoking should understand that quitting will be better for them in terms of their well-being — as well as their physical health — in the long run,” Dr Lang said.

Click to see also:->

Smokers ‘make their children ill’

Call to end child passive smoking

‘Clear smoking link’ to cot death

Timeline: Smoking and disease

Smoke ban urged for foster 

 Smokers ‘will die 10 years early’

Sources:The Times Of India

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News on Health & Science

Why Some Can’t Kick The Butt

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Mark Twain‘s claimed unsuccessful attempts to quit smoking a hundred times over might be explained not through lack of will, but proteins in the brain.
Blame it on brain

A genetic study of 14,000 people in Europe and the US has shown that variations in segments of two proteins that serve as gateways for nicotine entry into brain cells can predict the risk of addiction.

The study by US and Canadian scientists has shown that people with specific gene sequence coding for these proteins are more likely to be addicted to nicotine than people whose sequences are subtly different.

The two proteins called alpha-3 and alpha-5 form sites on brain cells which are activated during the process of addiction. The findings were published today in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

“Pharmaceutical companies can now study these targets and develop new drugs that could help people quit (smoking),” Wade Berrettini, professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and lead investigator in the study, told The Telegraph.

Existing anti-nicotine medications are not always effective.

Previous studies from Australia, North America, Scandinavia and China had indicated that the tendency for habitual heavy smoking — up to 20 cigarettes a day — was influenced by the genetic makeup.

Researchers have estimated that two-thirds of the risk of heavy smoking is genetic — believed to be a combination of several genes, each of which contributes to a small amount of the risk.

In the new study, the American-Canadian team found that variations in alpha-3 and alpha-5 could be used to predict the number of cigarettes per day during the period of heaviest smoking.

Existing medications, including nicotine replacement patches, are effective only for a few months in heavy smokers. “We could also use the genetic variations of alpha-3 and alpha-5 to determine whether they can predict the ability of people to quit using existing drugs,” Berrettini said.

The findings also raise the possibility — although there is no evidence for this yet — that people with certain variations in the alpha-3 and alpha-5 genes might find it easier to quit smoking than others.

“This could be confirmed through analysis of genetic variations between people who have quit successfully and those who repeatedly return to nicotine after trying to quit,” Berrittini said.

Public health specialists believe that many people around the world, aware of the health risks of tobacco, are trying to quit but are unable to do so. They’re in the league of the American writer Mark Twain who is said to have once quipped: “Quitting smoking is easy, I’ve done it a hundred times.”

Sources:The Telegraph (Kolkata, India)

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News on Health & Science

Smokeless Tobacco Vs Cigarettes

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A new study has found that smokeless tobacco, the kind users put between cheek and gum may be almost as effective as cigarettes in delivering nicotine and carcinogens.
Smokeless tobacco, the kind users put between cheek and gum, is one way to satisfy a craving for nicotine without offensive smoke. But a new study has found that it may be almost as effective as cigarettes in delivering nicotine and carcinogens.

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Researchers tested the urine of 420 smokers and 182 users of smokeless tobacco for cotinine, a marker of nicotine exposure, and for a group of closely related powerful carcinogens called NNAL. The subjects had been recruited for smoking reduction studies, and the measurements were taken just before the studies began.

Smokeless tobacco users had, on an average, 74 per cent higher levels of NNAL in their urine than smokers, and 94 per cent higher levels of cotinine.
In animal studies, NNAL has been shown to be highly carcinogenic, causing tumours in the lung, pancreas, nasal mucosa and liver of rats. “The main message of this study is that smokeless tobacco cannot be regarded as safe, because it delivers just as much of one of the carcinogens in cigarette smoke as cigarettes do,” said Stephen S Hecht, the lead author of the study, published in the August issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, and a professor of laboratory medicine at the University of Minnesota. “While it may be safer than cigarettes, it is not nearly safe enough,” he added.

Countering suggestions that smokeless tobacco might be a less harmful alternative for people unable to give up tobacco, the researchers wrote that smokeless tobacco is very risky, and should be discouraged.

Source:The times Of India

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Little exercise can help smokers quit

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As little as five minutes of exercise could help smokers quit, says a new study.

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Research published in the international medical journal Addiction showed that moderate exercise, such as walking, significantly reduced the intensity of smokers’  nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

If we found the same effects in a drug, it would immediately be sold as an aid to help people quit smoking,  said Dr Adrian Taylor, the study’s lead author and professor of exercise and health at the University of Exeter.

Taylor and colleagues reviewed 12 papers looking at the connection between exercise and nicotine deprivation. They focused on exercises that could be done outside a gym, such as walking and isometrics, or the flexing and tensing of muscles.

According to their research, just five-minutes of exercise was often enough to help smokers overcome their immediate need for a nicotine fix.

After various types of moderate physical exertion, researchers asked people to rate their need for a cigarette. People who had exercised reported reduced a desire. “What’s surprising is the strength of the effect,” said Dr Robert West, professor of health psychology at University College London. West was not involved in the review.

“They found that the acute effects of exercise were as effective as a nicotine patch,” he said. West cautioned that it was unknown how long the effects of exercise would last. “You could in theory use exercise to deal with short bouts of nicotine cravings, but we don’t know if it would help in the longer term,   he said

Source:The Telegraph (Kolkata,India)

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Healthy Tips

Stop Smoking Now

Get serious about quitting smoking with this customizable plan.

Fill in the dates of start of plan. Click on the “Print this” option above for a printable version of this form.

1.Start walking thirty minutes every day, no excuses, every day. Start this now. __________________.

2. Fill prescription. Ask your doctor for prescriptions for 100 milligram Wellbutrin tablets, and nicotine patches dosed according to the amount you smoke as indicated below:
For 1/2 a pack a day, take 7-10 milligrams

For 1/2-1 pack a day, take 14 milligrams

For 1-2 packs a day, take 21 or 22 milligrams

For more than 2 packs a day, ask your doctor

3. On ____, (Day 31: two days before you plan to stop smoking, take 1 Wellbutrin (bupropion).

Next two days, take 1 Wellbutrin each morning.

4. Apply your nicotine transdermal patch system on Day 33 (this is your stop smoking day). Place one patch on your arm, chest, or thigh (replace daily).

5. On subsequent days, take Wellbutrin each morning and each evening. Most folks wean off Wellbutrin between days 90 and 180.

Continue walking thirty (to forty-five) minutes each day; feel free to drink as much coffee or water as you wish.

6. Make a chart of your daily activities.

7. Phone or e-mail your support person daily to discuss your progress.

8. Begin weightlifting on Day 37 (___, or earlier). Do not increase your physical activities by more than 10 percent a week.

9. Decrease dose of nicotine in patch every 2 months (you can cut patches in half) until no longer needed.

From “You: The Owner’s Manual” by Michael F. Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet C. Oz, M.D. (HarperResource)

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