Australia: Smoking rates in Victoria drop to all-time low for women

Smoking rates have dropped 20% in Victoria over the last ten years, thanks to higher cigarette prices, bans on tobacco advertising and graphic health campaigns. 

A report released by the Cancer Council Victoria today also showed smoking rates had dropped to an all-time low for women, decreasing from 17.5% in 1998 to 14.7% last year.

For men, the rate reduced from 25% in 1998 to 18.5% last year. Overall, the random survey of 3000 Victorians showed 16.5% of people smoked regularly in 2008.

Young Victorians, aged 18 to 29, are still the most likely to smoke with 22.3% of them regularly smoking last year. The group was closely followed by those aged 30 to 29, of which 18.8% are regular smokers.

Professor Melanie Wakefield, the director of the Council's Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer, said the trends reflected the introduction of anti-tobacco measures, including a total ban on traditional tobacco advertising, higher prices, graphic warnings on packets and regular mass media campaigns.

"A number of significant tobacco control initiatives have been implemented since 1998 and the impact of these efforts are likely to have contributed to the continued decline," she said.

The executive director of Quit Victoria, Fiona Sharkie, said more work was required to continue the downward trend.

"Tobacco is the number one cause of preventable death in Victoria and while nearly 4000 Victorians every year are still dying as a result of smoking, there is no excuse for tobacco being anything less than a public health priority," she said.

The report was released to coincide with the launch of a new graphic advertising campaign, which will begin airing on television from Sunday night.

Source: The Age, 21 May 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/r5yy5h

Children more likely to become adult smokers if mother smoked

Children of mothers who smoked during pregnancy and their early childhood years may be predisposed to take up smoking as teens and young adults, compounding the physical damage they sustained from the smoke exposure. 

"It is well-known that maternal smoking influences a developing fetus in myriad ways, contributing to low birth weight, premature birth and a host of other health problems after birth," said Roni Grad, M.D., associate professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. "Previous studies have suggested that maternal smoking during pregnancy may increase the risk of the offspring becoming regular smokers as adults, but the impact of postnatal cigarette smoke exposure was hard to differentiate from prenatal exposure."

To determine the impact of maternal smoking during pregnancy and early childhood, on the smoking behaviour of the offspring as young adults, the researchers used data from the Tucson Children's Respiratory Study. Maternal smoking during pregnancy, at nine days, 1.5 months and 1.5 years was used to assess smoke exposure during pregnancy and the early life of the child. Maternal smoking was further assessed at ages six, nine and eleven years to evaluate smoke exposure during the school age years of the child. The smoking behaviour of the offspring was then assessed at ages 16 and 22 years.

The researchers found that maternal smoking during pregnancy and the early childhood years was associated with the offspring being regular smokers at the age of 22, independent of whether the mother smoked during the school age years of the child. Furthermore, of all of the offspring who had ever smoked, offspring of mothers who smoked during pregnancy and early life were less likely to quit than those of mothers who had never smoked or who had taken up the habit only when the child reaches the school age years. Finally, the impact of early maternal smoking was independent of the effect of paternal smoking and also the effect of exposure to peer smoking during the offspring's adolescence.

"The greatest impact on the smoking behavior of the offspring as young adults was linked to smoking during pregnancy by mothers who stopped smoking by the time the child reached the school age years is a risk factor for smoking in their offspring during early adulthood," said Dr. Grad. "The data suggest that a biological effect is in play, and that eliminating maternal smoking during pregnancy and the preschool years of the child will reduce the risk of her children becoming regular smokers in adulthood. In children of mothers who did smoke during this critical period, it is important to prevent experimentation with tobacco during the adolescent years."

Source: Medical News Today, 20 May 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/qr9u4o

Bangladesh:Tobacco cultivation poses threat to environment

Tobacco cultivation is posing a threat to the public health and the environment in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). 

Enviromentalists said, "At least 60 to 70 thousand metric tones of firewood is being burnt in 2,000 tobacco processing kilns every year, causing depletion of reserve and natural forests."

They said tobacco cultivation leaves a bad impact on the soil fertility and once tobacco is cultivated it's difficult to grow other crops on the same land.

Farmers and labourers said tobacco companies offer lucrative amount of money as loans to trap them. Sometimes the companies provide them with bank loans for agriculture along with tobacco seeds, fertiliser, polythene bags and high-powered pesticides like Diaconal, fertilisers of BSP, BAP, FMC and SOB and DDT powder.

British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BATB) sources said farmers receive bank loans as per the rules of Bangladesh Bank and each farmer gets Tk 6000 for an acre of cultivable land.

They said farmers get money by selling dried leaves and the company purchases leaves from them and adjust the loans that they provide.

Bindu Bikash Chakma, a tobacco cultivator at Mynee under Dighinala in Khagrachhari, said he has been cultivating tobacco for the last ten years but hardly got any benefit while farmers Abani Kumar Chakma, Aunglahpru Marma and Sarafat Ali in Khagrachhari also echoed what he said.

Zahirul Islam Jewel, manager of BATB in Bandarban, said tobacco is not a banned item and if it's banned then how [can] the companies produce tobacco. It's a cash crop, he said, adding that the government is earning huge amount of revenues from it.

He said tobacco cultivation does not create any negative impact on environment. He said they have been cultivating tobacco on 1200 acres of land in Bandarban without any impact on environment.

Dhaka Tobacco, Abul Khair Tobacco, Nasir Tobacco, KB Group Tobacco, RB Group Tobacco and Rangunia Samity also cultivate tobacco in the hills, sources said.

Chowdhury Harun, secretary of Rangamati Paribesh Sangrakhan Unnayan Sangstha, said tobacco cultivation should be banned as it seriously hampers the usual growing of other crops.

Abu Daud, member of Bangladesh Paribesh Ainbid Samity, in Khagrachhari said Government should take legal action against the tobacco companies to save our agricultural land from decay and infertility.

Md Lise Uddin, deputy director of AED in Rangamati, said they discourage the farmers to grow tobacco since it requires large quantity of fertiliser than cultivation of other crops.

Sources said about 5000 farmers have cultivated tobacco this year in Bandarban alone.

Source: The Daily Star, 21 May 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/ralvn8

More men than women die of COPD, study hints

Results of a study conducted in the Asia-Pacific region suggest that men with COPD are more likely to die or be hospitalised than women with COPD.

COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is a progressive disease that makes it hard to breathe. COPD can cause coughing that produces large amounts of mucus, wheezing, shortness of breath, chest tightness, and other symptoms.

Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of COPD, but it is also associated with long-term exposure to other lung irritants, such as air pollution and chemical fumes.

"The global rise of COPD is particularly dramatic in Asia-Pacific where two recognized risk factors for COPD - tobacco smoke and indoor air pollution - are highly prevalent and are significant contributors to death and disease burden," Dr. Wan C. Tan, from St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, Canada, said in a statement.

To better understand the epidemiology of COPD in this region, Tan and colleagues analysed data obtained from national health statistics agencies for 1991 to 2004.

They found that, in 2003, COPD death rates for men per 10,000 people ranged from 6.4 to 9.2. By contrast, for women, the rates were just 2.1 to 3.5 per 10,000 people.

COPD-related illness was also higher in men, with rates of 32.6 to 334.7 per 10,000 people, compared with rates of 21.2 to 129 per 10,000 for women.

Tan concluded, "The growing burden of COPD in the Asia-Pacific region supports the need for more intensive research and analysis to raise awareness of the disease and its causes. It is also important to reinforce the importance of persistent comprehensive anti-smoking strategies in individuals."

Source: Calgary Herald, 19 May 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/r8c97p

Early exposure to tobacco smoke may lead to early emphysema later

Chronic exposure to tobacco smoke in childhood may contribute to early emphysema later in life, according to new research. Secondhand smoke is known to be associated with a variety of serious health problems, but it had not previously been associated with the development of emphysema over the life course.

"Emphysematous 'holes' in the lung that begin as small areas of damage or impaired development may expand according to a fractal trajectory after an earlier insult," said Gina Lovasi, M.P.H., Ph.D., of Columbia University. "We hypothesized that secondhand smoke in childhood may be associated with signs of early emphysema detectable on computed tomography (CT) scan in adulthood and perhaps lower lung function detectable by spirometry."

Emphysema is an anatomically defined condition that overlaps substantially with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the fourth leading cause of death worldwide. Although smoking leads to emphysema in the upper lobes of the lungs, people who have never smoked may also have tissue destruction patterns that indicate emphysema. However, emphysema in people who have never smoked is more likely to appear as diffuse damage throughout the lungs.

To determine whether chronic exposure to secondhand smoke in childhood could lead to the development of early emphysema later in life, Dr. Lovasi and colleagues analysed data from a diverse sample of 3,964 relatively healthy adults recruited as part of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Artherosclerosis (MESA) study, focusing on 1,781 adults who had never smoked. The MESA-lung study assessed childhood exposure to ETS by asking each participant "In your childhood, did you live with a regular cigarette smoker who smoked in your home?"

The MESA-lung study was also the first large study of healthy adults to collect CT images that show most of the lungs, allowing for the classification of some areas of the lungs as having indications of early emphysema: large contiguous areas of air-like density ("holes", in contrast to lung tissue, which is more dense than air) or the total percentage of lung volume with air-like density.

After adjusting for a number of potentially confounding variables, including childhood asthma and living with a smoker as an adult, the researchers found that non-smokers who reported childhood exposure to ETS were more likely to have CT patterns that looked like early emphysema: large holes were relatively more common, and more of the lung volume appeared to have low, air-like density. The association was not detectable among current or former smokers, perhaps due to the relatively strong influence of one's own smoking history. They did not find an association for childhood ETS exposure and lung function as measured by spirometry.

"The take-home message from our analysis is that exposure to tobacco smoke during childhood may be associated with detectable differences in lung structure, and perhaps early emphysema, later in life among people who do not themselves smoke," Dr Lovasi said. "These findings might also help researchers to understand how lung damage develops. However, the observed associations are small and the implications of the novel CT-based measures for long-term health this research needs to be replicated."

Source: Eurekalert, 19 May 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/o7v5pc