Nicorette launches 25g nicotine patch to help people stop smoking

Nicorette has launched a new nicotine replacement therapy programme that includes a 25mg nicotine patch to help people trying to stop smoking.
Nicorette recommends that smokers begin a stop smoking attempt using a 25mg nicotine patch for eight weeks, then step down to a 15mg patch for two weeks, followed by 10mg patch for a further two weeks.

They cite evidence from a European multi-centre trial involving 3,575 smokers to support the introduction of a higher strength 25mg patch.

This study found that one in two smokers who used the 25mg patch and abstained from smoking during the first week of a quit attempt remained smoke free at 12 weeks

Source: Nursing Times, 17 January 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/a8ue55

Top cancer Doctor urges young people to say no to cigarettes

It's a traditional New Year resolution for many, and now a leading West of Scotland lung cancer consultant is warning young people that if they don't stop smoking health problems will appear sooner rather than later. 

Dr David Dunlop, a Consultant Medical Oncologist at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, says that he is regularly seeing patients in their early thirties with lung cancer and other serious smoking related diseases, and some even younger.

Dr Dunlop said, "The average age for women who develop lung cancer is coming down, and by 2015 this is expected to be 55 years. This is because people are starting to smoke at a younger age and are also being exposed to passive smoking."

These young patients are also presenting for treatment when their cancer is at an advanced stage because it is still considered unusual for people of their age to develop the disease, and the sinister signs of cancer are being masked by other symptoms of smoking related chest complaints.

The age of patients is also dropping for other cancers, such as mouth cancer and bladder cancer, and also non-malignant conditions linked to smoking like respiratory problems and strokes.

Dr Dunlop went on: "Mothers-to-be who smoke, expose their unborn child to passive smoking and that exposure continues through childhood. That child then is likely to begin smoking from early teens, then will have been smoking for nearly all of their lives. Traditionally people didn't really start smoking until they started work or even joined the army, now people are effectively starting to smoke from the time they are in the womb."

Young smokers are already being targeted by national prevention campaigns and new measures being considered for this year include further restrictions around displaying cigarettes and tobacco products at points of sale, and banning the sale of cigarettes in packs of 10 and from vending machines.

Smoking in public places was banned in March 2006, and there is already a positive impact on health:

"Since the ban there has already been a significant reduction in sudden deaths, and admissions to coronary care units and accident and emergency departments. As soon as someone stops smoking, the risk of cancer begins to fall back to normal," said Dr Dunlop.

According to the latest figures from NHS Health Scotland's "Young Adult Smokers in Scotland" report published last month, 166,000 or 28 per cent of 16-24 year olds smoked regularly in 2006.

Smoking rates for this group fell between 1999 and 2004 from 31 per cent to 25 per cent but then rose to 30 per cent in 2007.

The Scottish Government has set a target to reduce this rate to 22.9 per cent by 2012.

Source: Medical News Today, 16 January 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/8zdp44

Australia: Calls for bigger warnings on ciggie packs

A key anti-smoking group has called for bigger warnings on cigarette packets, after finding nearly half of smokers do not know their habit causes lung cancer.

The research from the Cancer Council of Victoria showed 21.5 per cent of the state's smokers think the dangers of smoking are exaggerated and 49 per cent do not identify lung cancer as a smoking-caused illness.

Almost two thirds of those surveyed did not spontaneously identify smoking as a cause of emphysema, heart disease or heart attack.

The Quit anti-smoking group wants the federal government to force cigarette companies to display larger warnings on packets.

Currently cigarette packets in Australia must have 30 per cent of the front of the pack dedicated to health warnings and 90 per cent of the back.

Quit policy manager Kylie Lindorff said it wanted 90 per cent of the front of the pack to be dedicated to anti-smoking messages.

"We would also like plain packaging, so the companies can't use the pack as a mini-billboard to reassure smokers that smoking isn't as bad as they think it is."

She said,  "The industry are constantly trying to play down or disguise the serious health affects and some smokers were reassured by words such as 'fresh' put on packets."

The information released came from a survey of 3000 Victorian smokers taken in November 2007.

Source: The Australian, 19 January 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/9ukpos

Genes may explain why smokers die young, while others escape

Two newly identified genes can increase the chances of an unhealthy lifestyle giving you cancer, scientists believe. 

The findings could explain why some heavy drinkers and smokers live to a ripe old age while others have their lives cut short by their habits. 

The genes put carriers more at a heightened risk of developing five different types of cancer, the researchers found - skin, lung, bladder, prostate and cervical cancer.

Lung cancer in particular is one of the most deadly, killing around 35,000 sufferers in Britain every year.

The findings could allow scientists to identify those most at risk from suffering the potentially deadly conditions because of a combination of genetics and their lifestyle.

The researchers estimate that around one quarter of the population have the highest risk that their unhealthy lifestyle would give them cancer.

Another quarter of the population have the lowest risk, because they do not carry these genes, they estimate.

However, as yet the scientists did not know by how much these two genes can increase the overall lifetime chance of developing a form of the disease.

On average humans have a one in three chance of developing some form of cancer over their lifetime.

Scientists have long known that lifestyle and environment can affect a person's risk of developing many types of cancer.

Smoking has previously been linked to lung and bladder cancer, drinking to different types of cancer including liver cancer, and eating a diet high in red meat to an increased risk of bowel cancer.

But researchers have never been clear on the exact nature of how these exposures increase risk, and why some people appear more prone to their effects than others.

Tim Bishop, professor of genetic epidemiology at the University of Leeds, and one of the co-authors of the paper, said that cancer was often caused by a "complex" interplay between genetic and environmental factors, and that these newly identified genes could go some way to explaining their relationship.

The scientists were able to isolate the genes by looking at the genetic make up of more than 33,000 cancer survivors and another 45 ,000 people who had never suffered from the disease.

They then compared the genes against their carrier's lifestyle and history of the disease.

While they increased the chance of suffering from five types of cancer the genes were not linked to an increased risk of another nine cancers for which the researchers could test, including breast cancer, the most commonly diagnosed form of the disease in women, according to the findings, published in the journal Nature Genetics.
 

Source: The Telegraph, 18 January 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/a6k5la

Claims over likely deaths of bar staff ‘absurd’

Sir, Michael J. McFadden (Letters, January 10/11) claims that the smoking ban in UK pubs will cause 1,000 deaths every year among bar workers as their wages are halved when they are forced out of bar work “into menial employment” as a result of the legislation. His claims are dangerous and absurd.

He makes this calculation on two assumptions. First, that over the next five years 50 pubs will close each week solely as a result of the legislation, making 100,000 bar workers unemployed, and, second, that 1 per cent of them will die as a result.

His sums only make sense if all pub closures for the next five years are entirely the result of this legislation and that all those workers have their income halved in the first year. Camra, the UK “real ale” group, has reported that an average of 57 pubs a month closed in the year pubs were subject to the new legislation but it also noted that 56 pubs a month closed the previous year, a difference of just one pub per month or 12 in all.

AC Nielsen, the market research group, has reported that beer sales from pubs fell in 2007 and that around half the decline could be ascribed to the anti-smoking law. If that translates as 50 per cent of closures then the legislation can be credited with causing just six pubs a month to close. Under Mr McFadden's formula that would mean 60 bar workers losing their jobs and 1 per cent of them would die as a result. How many deaths is 1 per cent of 60?

Martin Dockrell,
Director of Policy Research,
Ash,
London E1, UK

Source: The Financial Times, 17 January 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/943tde