Among 5,366 men with prostate cancer in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, those smoking at diagnosis were 61 percent more likely to die of the disease and to see it recur. After adjustment the increases were 38 and 47 percent, and rose with pack-years. Published in JAMA.
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Environment
Cigarette smoking boosts breast cancer risk
In the Nurses' Health Study, women who ever smoked were 6 percent more likely to be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and 20 pack-years before a first birth came with 18 percent higher risk. Postmenopausal smoking and passive smoking showed no increase.
Lifestyle
Smoking before menopause may boost breast cancer risk
A study of 111,140 women found smoking before menopause, especially before giving birth, modestly raised breast cancer risk, with the earliest and heaviest smokers most affected. Light and moderate smoking and secondhand smoke showed no increase.
Lifestyle
Smoking kills more men
Analyzing WHO death rates across 30 European countries, researchers estimate smoking accounts for 40 to 60 percent of the gap between male and female mortality, with alcohol adding 20 to 30 percent. Gaps ran from 188 per 100,000 in Iceland to 942 in Ukraine.
Lifestyle
Video games impact teen depression and smoking
A Yale survey of 4,028 adolescents found 76.3 percent of boys and 29.2 percent of girls play video games, and 4.9 percent of gamers called their play problematic. The researchers linked problematic gaming to regular smoking, drug use, fighting and depression.
Lifestyle
Depressed smokers less likely to kick the habit
About 41% of callers to the California Smokers' Helpline reported some depression. Two months on, only one in five callers with major depression had stayed smoke-free, against one in three with mild depression. Most quitlines do not screen for depression.
Lifestyle
Passive smoking causes more heart disease deaths than lung cancer deaths
WHO researchers estimate secondhand smoke kills about 600,000 people a year worldwide, including 379,000 from heart disease and 21,400 from lung cancer. Two-thirds of those deaths occur in Africa and south Asia, and about 165,000 are children.
Lifestyle
The Great American Smokeout
The event grew from a 1972 scholarship fundraiser in Randolph, Massachusetts and a 1974 “Don't Smoke Day” in Monticello, Minnesota, where a follow-up survey found nearly 10 percent of quitters had stayed off cigarettes. The American Cancer Society took it national in 1977.
Lifestyle
Cigarette smoke boosts Alzheimer's risk
Tracking 21,123 health plan members over 23 years, researchers led from the University of Eastern Finland found people who smoked more than two packs a day were twice as likely to develop dementia, 2.57 times as likely to get Alzheimer's and 2.7 times as likely to develop vascular disease.
Lifestyle
Cigarette smoking in midlife linked to Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia
The FDA proposed nine larger text warnings and colour graphic images for cigarette packs and advertisements, taking public comment from November 2010 to January 2011. HHS puts smoking deaths at 443,000 a year, and studies also link smoking to dementia.
Lifestyle
Chronic cigarette smoking linked to cardiovascular disease
The FDA proposed nine new graphic cigarette warning labels for public comment. A mouse study in the American Journal of Physiology found long-term smoke exposure produced hypertension, endothelial dysfunction, oxidative stress, less available nitric oxide and mild cardiac enlargement.
Government
FDA wants more tobacco warnings
HHS and the FDA proposed nine larger text warnings plus colour graphic images for cigarette packs and advertisements, among them “Cigarettes cause cancer” and “Smoking can kill you.” The FDA sought public comment on 36 proposed images through 11 January 2011.
Miscellaneous
Cigarette Smoking and Smokeless Tobacco Use Among Adults --- United States, 2009
CDC's analysis of 2009 BRFSS data found self-reported smoking ranged from 6.4% in the U.S. Virgin Islands to 25.6% in Kentucky and West Virginia, and smokeless tobacco use from 0.8% to 9.1% in Wyoming. Smokeless use was highest among men and people aged 18 to 24.
Miscellaneous
Quit Smoking: Expanded Coverage in Health Plans
From January 2011, every Federal Employees Health Benefits plan must cover all seven FDA-approved cessation medications plus individual, group and telephone counseling, with no co-pays or deductibles. OPM estimates about 400,000 federal employees, or 18 percent, smoke.
Cancer
Cigarette smoking may boost pancreatic cancer risk - study
In a study following 120,852 people for 16.3 years, current smokers had an 82 percent higher risk of pancreatic cancer and former smokers 34 percent, compared with never-smokers. Risk fell gradually after quitting and was no longer raised 20 years on.
Lifestyle
Heavy smoking in midlife boosts Alzheimer's disease risk
Among 21,123 people followed an average 23 years, those who smoked more than two packs a day in middle age had a 157 percent higher risk of Alzheimer's and a 172 percent higher risk of vascular dementia. Past smokers and those under half a pack showed no increase.
Lifestyle
White smokers get breast cancer earlier than non-smokers - study
A case-control study of 6,000 breast cancer patients in The Breast Journal found white women with any smoking history were 20% more likely to be diagnosed at 55 or younger than never-smokers, and less likely to get breast-conserving treatment. No significant link appeared among black patients.
Lifestyle
Passive smoking more harmful than thought
Weill Cornell researchers measured nicotine and cotinine in 121 people and scanned their airway cells, finding that any detectable level, from passive or infrequent smoking, correlated with abnormal activity in genes tied to lung disease. The study appeared in AJRCCM.
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