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ASH Daily news for 31 August 2011

HEADLINES

  • The truth about social smoking

    Jeremy Laurance discusses the effects of occasional smoking:

    Occasional or social smokers are defined in two ways: either as not smoking every day or as smoking an average of less than one cigarette a day. Surveys suggest that between 10 and 18 per cent of smokers smoke five or fewer cigarettes a day.

    Professor Robert West, an expert on smoking at University College London, is updating a study of light smokers he made with his colleague Peter Hajek in 1995.

    "The excess risk of cancer for a daily smoker is 15-fold higher than for a non-smoker," Professor West says. Heart disease is different – the risk is not proportional to the amount smoked. It is much higher, proportionally, for the first one or two cigarettes – hence the risk from passive smoking.
     
    Scientists have been puzzled by this disproportionate risk. A non-smoker who lives with a person who smokes 20 a day has one-third of the risk of their partner, even though they are actually exposed to only 1 per cent of the smoke.
     
    Laboratory evidence suggests this is because toxins in tobacco smoke peak at low levels of exposure, increasing the stickiness of the blood and inflaming the arteries, increasing the risk of thrombosis.

    But if you have to smoke, it is better to smoke occasionally rather than regularly and it is better to smoke a little than a lot.
     
    Source: The Independent, 30 August 2011
    Link: http://ind.pn/piklp6

  • Smoking causes more arterial damage in women than in men

    The harmful effects of tobacco smoke on atherosclerosis, one of the driving forces of cardiovascular disease, are greater in women than in men, according to a large European epidemiological study.

    In the IMPROVE study, authors examined 1694 men and 1893 women from Finland, Sweden, Netherlands, France and Italy, and used ultrasound technology to assess the presence of wall thickening and plaques in the carotids, the arteries that bring blood to the brain.

    The research shows that the amount tobacco exposure during the entire life significantly correlates with the thickness of carotid arterial walls in both genders, but the impact is more than doubled in women than in men. Similarly, the effect of the number of cigarettes smoked per day on the progression of the disease over time is more than five-fold in women than in men.
    Source: Medical Lexicon News, 30 August 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/pVmV3R

  • Sweden: Taking snuff during pregnancy may be worse than smoking

    Babies born to snuff-using mothers were more likely to have breathing problems than those whose mothers smoked while pregnant, according to a Swedish study led by Anna Gunnerbeck at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

    Snuff is ground tobacco that is high in nicotine but doesn't generate the same additional chemicals as cigarette smoke because it's not burned.

    Gunnerbeck and her colleagues studied the records of 610,000 babies born in Sweden between 1999 and 2006, looking for cases of "apnea," which occurs when a newborn stops breathing. For babies whose mothers smoked during pregnancy, the risk of apnea increased by about 50 percent. For those whose mothers used snuff, the rate was more than twice as high as in babies born to mothers who didn't use any kind of tobacco.
     
    Gunnerbeck said the study suggests that women should be urged to stop smoking without nicotine replacements during pregnancy, but added that if  looking at the whole picture, smoking is generally more dangerous than using snuff.
     
    Source: Reuters, 31 August 2011
    Link: http://reut.rs/pEwgZi

  • Half of London shopkeepers aware of illegal tobacco sales

    Half of London's corner shopkeepers are aware of smuggled and counterfeit tobacco being sold in their area, a survey has found.

    The Tobacco Retailers Alliance asked 1,062 UK retailers their knowledge of the sale of smuggled and counterfeit tobacco and its supply to under 18s.
     
    The survey also revealed that 54% of London respondents were aware of adults legally buying tobacco for under 18s.
    Source: BBC online, 30 August 2011
    Link: http://bbc.in/r1bcVW

  • Derby hospital allocates money to enforce smoking ban

    Hospital chiefs have been given £50,000 to tackle smoking among staff and patients after people were found breaking a smoking ban.

    Since September 2006, Royal Derby Hospital and London Road Community Hospital have been smoke-free but patients, visitors and staff have been spotted breaking the rules.
     
    A plan of action has been drawn up to enforce the rules with the help of £50,000 from health authority NHS Derby City.
     
    A hospital spokesman said the action plan was wide-ranging and included new signs, offering support to staff and patients to kick the habit and a computer system to allow staff to refer people to stop-smoking services more easily.
    Source: Derby Telegraph, 27 August 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/qJTBvZ

  • Uzbekistan: Uzbek airline says no to 'nos'

    Uzbekistan's national airline is telling passengers to limit the amount of 'nos', a form of powdered tobacco, they take with them aboard flights,

    Nos, which is widely used in Central Asia, is placed under the tongue and is said to produce an effect similar to smoking cigarettes.
     
    The Uzbekistan Havo Yollari air company announced on August 24 that passengers could carry no more than 250 grams of nos.
    Source: Tobacco Reporter Magazine, 26 August 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/qcy2Nw

  • British American Tobacco and illogical markets

    An opinion piece on British American Tobacco (BAT) shares by 'Smart Investor'.  He concludes:

    "With a price to book ratio of 5.9 and a price to earnings ratio of 18.8, BAT is overpriced but this same conclusion is likely to have been reached long before the shares hit their current levels. Sometimes, the stock market just does not make much sense."
    Source: Citywire, 31 August 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/pfaQoy