Stop Smoking Way

Obesity is now a bigger overall threat to people’s health than smoking, according to results of the longest continuing health study of adults in the United States.

Obesity causes as much or more disease than tobacco, says the study, conducted by researchers from Columbia University and the City College of New York. It adds while smoking rates are starting to decline, obesity now shortens as many or even more healthy lifespans than tobacco use.

“Health impacts of obesity are, in many ways, much larger, than the health impacts of smoking,” said Arya Sharma, chairman for obesity research and management at the University of Alberta. “(Smoking) in the end, is limited to heart disease and cancer.”

Harvard Medical School’s Healthbeat reports:

• Smoking is the top risk factor for heart disease. But for women on birth control pills, it increases the risk of stroke and heart attack even more.

• Less than one out of three Americans gets enough exercise, but women are even less active than men, especially in the 18 to 30 and over-65 age ranges.

• Women should especially beware of having high triglycerides and a waist over 35 inches, which greatly increase the risk of diabetes or a fatal heart attack.

Chief medical officer Joann Schaefer says Nebraskans recognize the harm of cigarette smoke and support the state’s recent ban on smoking in most public places.

Her comments came earlier this month as the state Department of Health and Human Services released a report detailing reaction to the ban.

Beach-going smokers may have to curb their habit outdoors, under proposals Trenton lawmakers discussed Thursday.

Members of a Senate committee on health, human services and senior citizens spent Thursday afternoon debating how a ban on smoking at beaches and parks might work.

They took up the issue as three separate bills arrived in committee. Taken together, the three would block smoking at most beaches, as well as parks and forests and even racetracks.

But legislators ultimately held the bills in order to amend and combine them, as they traded conflicting definitions of what areas might be covered.

Perhaps Wichita should take some pride in how much a House-proposed statewide public smoking ban resembles a 2008 city ordinance, which allows smoking, for a fee, if businesses prohibit patrons younger than 18 or build separately ventilated smoking rooms.

But as a statewide smoking ban, the House bill is a “fraud,” as Gov. Mark Parkinson put it when he vowed to veto the measure if it reaches his desk.

At a time when cigarette smoking is on the decline, consumption of other tobacco products is actually on the rise.

Cigar smoking rose 46 percent between 1993 and 1997, and pipes are increasingly popular among high school students.

Health officials have said a major problem is that consumers believe cigars and pipes are less harmful than cigarettes but the truth is tobacco smoke carries the same toxins no matter what form it comes in.

A Life Cut Short by Tobacco

According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in American men and women today. It’s also the most preventable form of cancer, with 87 percent of all lung cancer cases attributable to tobacco use.

While tobacco is usually a slow killer, with the toxins and carcinogens in tobacco smoke taking years to poison us, that’s not always the way of it. Sometimes tobacco strikes a person down young.

In the heart-wrenching account I’m sharing with you today, About.com Smoking Cessation support forum member Karen (9Sept) shares this real life story about Cat, a young man who used tobacco much less than the average person and for decades less than most smokers. His story will sadden and scare you … and it should.

As if protecting our children from the dangers of second hand smoke wasn’t hard enough, now a new study shows that third hand smoke (defined as tobacco residue that clings to surfaces), is also harmful to their health.

This new study, which was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that a burning cigarette releases nicotine in the form of a vapor, and then collects and condenses on indoor surfaces, such as carpets, drapes, furniture, and walls. It can linger on these surfaces for months.

UAE health officials have delayed a national smoking ban until they have decided which government bodies will be responsible for its enforcement, according to reports.

Last month the Ministry of Health announced details of the new legislation, but yesterday an official said the public would be fully informed once the details had been finalised.

Auckland’s Regional Public Health Service are calling on the Government to increase tobacco tax and ban smoking in many outdoor public areas such as beaches, playgrounds, bus stops and outside buildings. The recommendations include increase tobacco tax by 5 per cent plus inflation per year, banning tobacco vending machines, licensing tobacco retailers. Dr. Andrew Lindsay, clinical leader of the health service’s alcohol and tobacco team told that 5000 deaths a year can be ascribed to smoking.