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ASH Daily news for 20 September 2011

HEADLINES

  • Smoking in films 'encourages teenagers to take it up'

    Teenagers who watch films showing actors smoking are more likely to take it up, new UK research suggests.

    Experts who made the link by questioning 5,000 15-year-olds say their findings should prompt a change in film certification so that under-18s are no longer exposed to such images.

    The Bristol University investigators say a precautionary approach is needed.

    The latest research, published in the journal Thorax, looked at the potential influence of some of the 360 top US box office films released between 2001 and 2005, including movies like Spider-Man, Bridget Jones and The Matrix, that depict smoking.

    Adolescents who saw the most films depicting smoking were 73% more likely to have tried a cigarette than those exposed to the least. And they were 50% more likely to be a current smoker.

    See also: 

    - Film censors under fire for failure to stub out smoking on screen, The independent

    - Warning - may contain scenes of smoking: Films featuring cigarettes should be given 18 certificate, say health experts, Daily Mail

    - Smoking in films harms children, ASH press release

    Source: BBC News - 20 September 2011
    Link: http://bbc.in/pgWAYt

  • U.N. tackles noncommunicable diseases, world's leading killer

    World leaders kicked off a historic two-day meeting at the United Nations on Monday by unanimously approving a "political declaration" meant to stem a rising tide of noncommunicable diseases, now the world's leading killer.

    It is only the second time a health issue has been debated at a special meeting of the General Assembly after the group's pledge to take on AIDS a decade ago.

    "This is a landmark meeting," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. "Three out of every five people on Earth die from the diseases that we gather here to address."

    Ban called for a more comprehensive intervention plan to help reduce the threat, asking for "tobacco-control measures, including raising taxes and bans on advertising and smoking in public places; raising taxes on alcohol and enforcing bans on alcohol advertising; reducing salt intake," as well as replacing trans fats in foods with polyunsaturated fats.

    See also:

    - WHO’s pricetag for fighting ‘noncommunicable diseases’: $11.4 billion a year, Washington Post

    - Australian Health Minister urges UN to fight big tobacco manfacturers over plain packaging, Herald Sun

    Source: CNN - 19 September 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/rb17QP

  • Exercise significantly improves teens' chances of giving up smoking

    Teenagers who give up smoking are much more likely to succeed if they also do exercise, compared to others of the same age who try to quit, researchers from West Virginia reported in the journal Pediatrics. The addition of physical exercise was found to be especially effective for boys.

    Kimberly Horn, EdD, of the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown, and colleagues set out to determine how effective smoking cessation programs were for teenagers. They found that those that included physical activity were 48% more effective over a six-month period than programs that did not.

    They recruited 233 teenagers who had smoked at least one cigarette recently. The adolescents came from 19 state schools in West Virginia.

    Source: MediLexicon - 19 September 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/nlTTpc

  • Production and sale of cigarettes on decline in Turkey

    According to figures of the Turkish Tobacco and Alcohol Market Regulatory Authority, in the first seven months of 2011, 48.8 billion units of cigarettes were produced in Turkey compared to 63.4 billion units in the same term of 2010.

    In the first seven months of 2011, 53.1 billion units of cigarettes were sold in Turkey compared to 53.8 billion units in the same period of 2010.

    Health experts say that the ban on smoking in closed areas and anti-smoking campaigns have resulted in a drop in the amount of cigarette consumption.

    Source: World Bulletin - 19 September 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/q3midI

  • Pakistan: Father of tobacco control dies

    Abdul Sattar Chaudhry, one of the most eminent public health professionals in Pakistan, has died.

    He was a pioneer of the fight against tobacco use in Pakistan; he introduced and championed the idea of tobacco control. Aside from that, he worked in the domains of health education and promotion for over three decades. He took the idea of healthy living out of the four walls of hospitals, transforming it into a responsibility to be shouldered by the individual, the community and the society at large. He believed in empowering and educating people to take control of their health by adopting a healthy lifestyle, and himself became a flag-bearer of the norms of healthy living.

    Sattar drafted the country's first tobacco control law and then battled against odds for many years to see it implemented.  

    Sattar was instrumental in getting his country sign and then ratify the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which places restrictions on tobacco use in countries party to it.

    Sattar served in the Ministry of Health for 24 years as a health education adviser, and upon retirement, was hired by the World Health Organization (WHO), where he served as a technical officer until 2010. 

    Source: The International News - 19 September 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/nTMGaR