HEADLINES

• Leaders vow to cut deaths from chronic disease
• Yorkshire: Vaporising the smoking ban
• Norfolk: Major cigs thefts from Aylsham and Drayton Budgens thought to be linked
• Pakistan: tobacco chewing persists despite cancer warnings
• New Jersey: More multi-family buildings are going smoke-free
• Cigarettes do women more harm than men: study

• Leaders vow to cut deaths from chronic disease

  World leaders have pledged to take wide-ranging action to prevent millions of deaths from cancer, diabetes, and heart and lung disease by tackling the key causes — smoking, excessive drinking, lack of exercise and unhealthy diets dominated by fast food.

  But the 13-page political declaration approved at the first-ever General Assembly meeting on chronic diseases which ended on Tuesday left unanswered the question of coordinating an international response to what the leaders called "a challenge of epidemic proportions".

  The declaration notes "with profound concern" that according to the World Health Organization, an estimated 36 million of the 57 million global deaths in 2008 were due principally to cancer, diabetes and heart and lung diseases — including about 9 million men and women below the age of 60. WHO said 80 percent of these deaths were in developing countries.

  See also:

  - Two days in New York: reflections on the UN NCD summit - The Lancet

  Source: The Guardian - 22 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/n25IfP

• Yorkshire: Vaporising the smoking ban

  The Blue Bell pub is to become a “Vaping Bar” – offering customers the chance to once again 'smoke' in a pub without breaking the law.

  Vaping is the name given to using electronic cigarettes, which emit vapour, not smoke. The devices contain liquid nicotine, not tobacco.

  People are invited to use their own e-cigs freely in the pub or try one of the demonstration models.

  Some health experts are concerned that the side effects of inhaling pure nicotine have yet to be adequately studied.

  A report conducted by Ash Scotland in August 2010 into the use of electronic cigarettes states that evidence on the safety of e-cigs is limited, although it said that it is unlikely that the long-term use of them is as harmful as smoking.

  The report also states e-cigs show promise as smoking cessation and nicotine maintenance devices, although evidence is limited.

  E-cigs are banned in countries including Australia, Canada and Mexico but just last week the Cabinet Office’s behavioural insight team – better known as the ‘nudge unit’– said it wants to adopt the new technology because policy officials believe the rigid “quit or die” approach to smoking advice no longer works.

  Source: Driffield Times and Post - 23 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/qV9cEz

• Norfolk: Major cigs thefts from Aylsham and Drayton Budgens thought to be linked

  Thieves have stolen more than £4,000 worth of cigarettes and tobacco from Aylsham’s Budgens supermarket in a crime believed to be linked to another elsewhere in Norfolk.

  Police think the crime is linked to the theft of a large quantity of cigarettes from the Budgens store in Fakenham Road, Drayton, the weekend before where than £8,000 worth of tobacco products were stolen.

  Source: The Advertiser 24 - 22 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/pE1SIu

• Pakistan: tobacco chewing persists despite cancer warnings

  Naswar is a mixture of dried tobacco leaves combined with lime, water and colouring agents, chewed by many in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

  Many users believe the substance is good for the teeth, despite warnings that it can cause gum cancer.

  A video report is available by clicking on the link below.

  Source: BBC News - 22 September 2011
  Link: http://bbc.in/o4ituU

• New Jersey: More multi-family buildings are going smoke-free

  It's against the law in New Jersey to smoke in common areas of residential buildings, but property managers are increasingly turning their complexes completely smoke-free because of the health and financial benefits.

  Nearly two dozen public and private housing properties prohibit smoking in private areas throughout the state, according to the Global Advisors for Smokefree Policy, or GASP. And there is momentum for more, said speakers on a panel in Atlantic City about smoke-free multifamily buildings.

  The benefits of going smoke-free are extensive, said property managers who have made the switch — there are lower maintenance costs because no one has to clean up cigarette butts, faster turnaround times on available units because smoke residue isn't stuck in wall paint and carpets, decreased fire and damage risks, and the opportunity for reduced insurance costs.

  Source: NJ.com - 21 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/oUf59O

• Cigarettes do women more harm than men: study

  Women suffer from more arterial damage caused by cigarette smoking than men do, new EU-funded research shows. The amount of tobacco exposure during a person's lifetime correlates with the thickness of carotid arterial walls in both men and women, but the effect is twofold in females. The result is an outcome of the IMPROVE ('Carotid intima media thickness (IMT) and IMT-progression as predictors of vascular events in a high risk population') project, a large-scale epidemiological study that clinched a EUR 2.5 million grant under the 'Quality of life and management of living resources' (LIFE QUALITY) Thematic Programme of the EU's Fifth Framework Programme (FP5).

  The European Society of Cardiology recently reported that researchers assessed almost 3 600 people (1 694 men and 1 893 women) from France, Italy, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden, and used sophisticated ultrasound technology to measure the presence of wall thickening and plaques in the carotids, the arteries that supply the head and neck with oxygenated blood.

  Besides discovering that women are more affected by the amount of tobacco exposure that correlates with the thickness of carotid arterial walls, the number of cigarettes smoked each day and the progression of the disease over time is five times bigger in women than men as well.

  The World Health Organization (WHO) says despite the fact that the majority of European countries have reported a considerable drop in the number of male smokers, including Italy and Finland, the number of female smokers has remained relatively the same within a 30-year period. The number has even increased in Spain and France, the data show.

  Source: European Commission - 22 September 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/oI4fuV