HEADLINES

• Healthy living can cut chances of developing diabetes
• Cigarette smuggler jailed for failing to pay £500k order
• Worldwide cancer rates could be cut by 2.8m with healthier lifestyles
• Smoking rate fall to 17% in Canada
• Japan: Health minister calls for drastic cigarette tax increase

• Healthy living can cut chances of developing diabetes

  A healthy lifestyle can cut your risk of diabetes by as much as 80 percent, according to researchers from the U.S. National Institute of Healthy living.

  It has been clear that diet, exercise, smoking and drinking have an impact on whether one is likely to develop type 2 diabetes, but how each individual factor affects the risk had been unclear.

  "The lifestyle factors we looked at were physical activity, healthy diet, body weight, alcohol consumption and smoking," said lead researcher Jarad Reis, a researcher from the U.S. Division of Cardiovascular Sciences at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

  For example, not smoking lowered the risk by about 20 percent.

  The more healthy lifestyle factors one has, the lower the risk for developing diabetes, Reis noted. Overall, risk reduction can reach 80 percent.

  The report is published in the Sept. 6 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

  Source: Health Day, 05 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/qasAQt

• Cigarette smuggler jailed for failing to pay £500k order

  A convicted cigarette smuggler has been jailed for three years for failing to pay a £500,000 confiscation order.

  Aiden Francis Grew had pleaded guilty in 2008 to evading duty on almost five million cigarettes. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment suspended for two years.

  The conviction related to a joint police and customs operation in 2005 which recovered almost 16m cigarettes. No duty had been paid on them.

  John Whiting, assistant director, Criminal Investigation for HMRC, said Grew would now have to serve this default sentence as he failed to pay the confiscation amount.

  "We are determined that this money will be restored to the public's finances and we will continue to pursue this debt to reclaim the proceeds of crime," he said.

  "HMRC will seek to recover any financial gain from those involved in excise fraud and will work with our partners in the Organised Crime Task Force (OCTF) to stamp out the illegal trade in smuggled tobacco."

  Source: BBC News, 07 September 2011
  Link: http://bbc.in/q6ICeL

• Worldwide cancer rates could be cut by 2.8m with healthier lifestyles

  According to experts, sedentary lifestyles, poor diets, smoking and alcohol are key factors in a quarter of the 12m new cancers each year.

  Around 2.8m cancers worldwide could be prevented if people adopted healthier lifestyles and better diets, a report says.

  The huge toll of preventable cancers comes from an study by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), which comes 10 days before a United Nations summit in New York that will discuss ways to tackle the soaring rates of the disease around the world.

  "Cancer and other lifestyle-related diseases are one of the biggest challenges we face today, and the UN summit later this month is a real turning point," said Professor Martin Wiseman, medical and scientific adviser to the WCRF.

  Source: The Guardian, 07 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/oxb7DI

• Smoking rate fall to 17% in Canada

  According to a Statistics Canada survey that monitors tobacco use, 17 per cent of Canadians over the age of 15 smoked last year.

  Smoking rates continued to fall across the country and in all age groups, with British Columbia teenagers joining their counterparts in Ontario with the lowest rates in the country, at nine per cent.

  "I am particularly encouraged by the numbers when it comes to youth," Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said in a news release announcing the latest smoking results of the Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey.

  The survey findings are similar to smoking results released by Statistics Canada earlier this summer as part of the agency's community health survey.

  A Health Canada official said both surveys use the same data, but unlike CTUMS, the health survey deals with a broad range of health issues, not just tobacco.

  Source: CBC News, 07 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/n9uiAQ

• Japan: Health minister calls for drastic cigarette tax increase

  Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Yoko Komiyama proposed an increase on cigarette taxation, suggesting that Japan is still far behind international standards in regards to anti-smoking laws.

  Komiyama, who is the former secretarial head of the bipartisan Anti-Smoking Promotion League of Parliamentarians, said that a pack of cigarettes should cost at least 700 yen, and the tax increase should be made for health reasons more so than for the sake of tax revenue.

  "There is a need to annually increase cigarette taxes," she said, adding that the current price of 410-470 yen for a box of 20 is far behind the average in other countries, where smokers pay a minimum of 600 yen.

  "The issue should no longer be treated as financial. It is a health problem that we need to address immediately," Komiyama said, criticizing Japan's current policy of having the Finance Ministry control cigarette tax revenue.

  Source: Mainichi Daily News, 08 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/nEr79m