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Spontaneous Quitting Works Best
Researchers Robert West and Taj Sohal postulated that building tension leads to decisive action. "In practice, worry about health and being fed up with the cost of smoking seem to be the main sources of tension that people can report," said West, of University College London.
"Planned quit attempts are implemented gradually and thus the level of motivation is probably rather low," said Boston University social and behavioral science expert Michael Siegel. "But these unplanned, sudden attempts probably reflect some sentinel event or great tension that precipitates a very high level of motivation to quit. And thus these attempts are more successful."
Siegel said the study suggests that more effort be devoted to motivating smokers to quit than on pharmaceutical interventions. Wise and Sohal said that public-health campaigns should focus on creating motivational tension, triggering action among those poised to quit, and supporting quitters with treatment and cessation aids.
The study appears in the British Medical Journal.
Reference: West, R., Sohal, T. (2006) 'Catastrophic' pathways to
smoking cessation: findings from national survey. BMJ, 332:458-460,
doi: 10.1136/bmj.38723.573866.AE.
Source: www.jointogether.org/news/research/summaries/2007/spontaneous-quitting-works.html
Smoking Linked to Stillbirths, Study
Says
Women who smoked during two consecutive pregnancies had a 35-percent higher risk of delivering a stillborn baby than those who didn't smoke at all or only smoked during their first pregnancy, according to Swedish researchers.
Reuters reported June 27 that researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockhold also found that women who smoked 10 or more cigarettes daily had a 45-percent higher risk of stillbirth if they smoked during both pregnancies.
The study was published in the June 2007 issue of BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Reference:
Högberg, L., Cnattingius, S. (2007) The influence of maternal
smoking habits on the risk of subsequent stillbirth: is there a
causal relation? BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and
Gynaecology, 114(6): 699–704. doi:
10.1111/j.1471-0528.2007.01340.x
Source: www.jointogether.org/news/research/summaries/2007/smoking-causes-stillbirths.html
New Jersey Senate Moves to Ban Smoking
in Casinos
NYC Smoking Rates Fall Dramatically
Ban all Promotions of Tobacco, Study Says
Smokeless Tobacco Poses Challenge for
Stop-Smoking Advocates
Increase in Nicotine Receptors Makes
Quitting Harder
Nicotine Withdrawal Starts Within Minutes
of Smoking
Reynolds Set to Test-Market 'Camel
Snus'
U.S. Death Rate Falls; Smoking
Trends May Share Credit
Visual Cues Outweigh Craving in Smokers,
Study Says
Smoking in Calif. Hits Record Low
The California Department of Health Services reported this week that the adult smoking rate in the state has fallen 38 percent since a state-funded stop-smoking campaign began in 1998. The 2005 smoking rate fell 14.6 percent compared to 2004.
"The ongoing decrease in the number of people smoking in California is a major public-health achievement," said state public-health official Mark Horton. "With California adults smoking 25 percent less than the rest of the nation, our state continues to benefit from lower rates of tobacco-related illnesses."
The smoking rate for adult California males was 17 percent last
year; 11.1 percent of women smoked. However, 18 percent of
18-to-24-year-olds smoked.
Source: www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2006/smoking-in-calif-hits-record.html
More Female Nonsmokers Dying of Lung
Cancer
Should Smokers Start Using Patch Before
Quitting?
Teens Exposed to Tobacco More Likely to
Have Metabolic Syndrome
Smoking's Global Death Toll Shows
Shift
Lung Disease Diagnosis Spurs Smokers
to Quit
Smokers' Sense Of Time Examined In
Study
Many Teens Exposed to Secondhand Smoke
Through Parents and Peers
Trial Nicotine Gum Quickly Quells
Cravings
Italy Bans Smoking In Most Public
Places
Big Tobacco Accused of Manipulating
Study
Millions Of U.S. Smokers Ignore
Warnings
Negotiations On The Tobacco
Convention
The Brazilian Ambassador Luis Felipe de Seixas Corrêa,
chair of the Inter-governmental Negotiating Body (INB) of the
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), made public his
proposed text for the global treaty.
Source: www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/EMIHC000/333/333/360131.html
The Brazilian Ambassador Luis Felipe de Seixas Corrêa,
chair of the Inter-governmental Negotiating Body (INB) of the
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), made public his
proposed text for the global treaty.
Source: www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/EMIHC000/333/333/360131.html
Study Looks At Nicotine's Role In
Cancer
Mothers Who Smoke May Put Their
Babies at Risk for Pyloric Stenosis
Study Links Cancer Rates, Prevention
Smoking Can Hurt Male Fertility
Researchers found infertile men who smoked show signs of significant oxidative damage in their semen. Oxidative damage is known to harm fertility and is caused by increased stress on normal body processes.
The findings appear in the September issue of Fertility and Sterility.
"Given the known potential adverse effects of [oxidative stress] on fertility, physicians should advise infertile men who smoke cigarettes to quit," writes study researcher Saleh A. Ramadan, MD, with colleagues at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio. "This argument against smoking is true for anyone wishing to conceive but is particularly important for individuals experiencing fertility problems."
Although cigarette smoking already has been shown to hurt female fertility, researchers say the impact on male fertility remains a controversial issue because studies have produced contradictory results.
In this study, researchers compared semen samples from 52 infertile men -- 20 smokers and 32 nonsmokers -- with samples from 13 healthy, nonsmoking men. They found "dramatically" more oxidative stress levels in the smokers.
No significant differences in standard sperm variables, such as sperm count or activity, or DNA damage were found between the infertile smokers and nonsmokers, but researchers say the fact that both groups were infertile may have obscured some levels of DNA damage.
But men who smoked also had 48% more infection-fighting white
blood cells in their semen than nonsmokers or healthy donors, which
may also cause problems with fertility.
Source: Jennifer Warner, my.webmd.com/content/article/1819.52408
Anti-Smoking Groups Call For Movie
Ratings To Factor In Tobacco
Smokers Disillusioned And
Over-Optimistic About Quitting
Heart Association Recommends
Screenings
Smokes Deadlier Than Labels
Suggest
Global Alliance Between European Commission
And WHO To Fight Against Communicable Diseases, Tobacco And Other
Health Threats
Cigarette Maker Removes "Light" From
Packaging
Pregnant Women Smokers Bear Low
Birth Weight Babies
Baby sitters may expose infants to
second-hand smoke
Cigarette addiction can start
early
Some 12- and 13-year-olds showed evidence of addiction within days of their first cigarette, according to research reported this week in the British Medical Association journal Tobacco Control.
"There's been a suspicion that many people become addicted very quickly, but this is really the first hard evidence that we've had that this occurs," said Dr. Richard Hurt, director of the Nicotine Dependency Unit at the Mayo Clinic.
Experts have tried for years to determine how long people have to smoke before becoming addicted, and "the best answer to date had been 1-2 years," said Hurt, who was not involved in the study.
He said the findings will help scientists better understand the biology of nicotine addiction and lend more plausibility to the idea that some people may be more genetically susceptible to it than others.
"The really important implication of this study is that we have to warn kids that you can't just fool around with cigarettes or experiment with cigarettes for a few weeks and then give it up," said Dr. Joseph DiFranza, who lead the research at the University of Massachusetts. "If you fool around with cigarettes for a few weeks, you may be addicted for life."
The study, conducted in 1998, followed 681 12- to 13-year-olds in central Massachusetts for a year and tracked their smoking habits.
The researchers did not label any of them addicted because the standard definition of nicotine dependence assumes addiction cannot happen without prolonged heavy smoking. The scientists simply recorded symptoms that indicate addiction.
These include cravings, needing more to get the same buzz, withdrawal symptoms when not smoking, feeling addicted to tobacco and loss of control over the number of cigarettes smoked or the duration of smoking.
Ninety-five of the youths said they had started smoking occasionally - at least one cigarette a month - during the study. The scientists found that 60, or 63 percent, had one or more symptoms of addiction.
A quarter of those with symptoms got them within two weeks of starting to smoke and several said their symptoms began within a few days.
Sixty-two percent said they had their first symptom before they began smoking every day, or that the symptoms made them start smoking daily.
The researchers found that the symptoms began soon after the teens started smoking.
Even though some people who have never smoked on a daily basis can find it hard to quit, the assumption that smokers only become addicted after smoking a lot of cigarettes over a long period of time came from observations that some people can smoke five cigarettes a day for many years and not become addicted, the study noted.
However, it has never been proven that daily smoking is necessary for addiction to begin, the study added.
The scientists suggested there may be three types of smokers: Those who become addicted very quickly, those who get hooked gradually after more regular smoking and those who can smoke lightly or pick up and drop the habit without becoming addicted.
It is also possible that adolescents could be more sensitive to
nicotine and that addiction may take longer in people who start
smoking at a later age, they added. www.healthcentral.com/News/NewsFullText.cfm?ID=41064&storytype=APNews
Nicotine addiction can hit within days
(9/12/00)
"The first symptoms of nicotine dependence can appear within days to weeks of the onset of occasional use, often before the onset of daily smoking," the researchers from the University of Massachusetts and Harvard Medical School said in the journal Tobacco Control.
This research goes against a "popular model for the development of nicotine dependence (which) holds that youths progress from the first cigarette through a period of occasional use and on to sustained and increasingly heavier daily use, resulting ultimately in dependence," the researchers added.
The study of about 700 teenagers aged between 12 and 13 from seven schools in central Massachusetts in 1998 showed that 95 students could be described as monthly smokers--they smoked at least one cigarette a month.
Of these 95 monthly smokers one in five reported nicotine dependency symptoms within four weeks of starting to smoke and 16 developed symptoms within two weeks, one of the researchers, Joseph DiFranza, told Reuters.
In total 60 out of 95 monthly smokers said they had experienced one or more symptoms of nicotine dependence.
Thirty-seven of the 60 who had experienced symptoms of nicotine dependency said they had felt their first feelings of dependency even before they started smoking daily or began smoking daily only upon starting to feel dependent.
The researchers said experiments on mice showed the number of nicotine receptors in the brain increased rapidly after just the second dose of nicotine, providing a mechanism for the quick development of dependence.
The researchers further postulated that three groups of individuals distinguishable by their dependence on nicotine may exist. The groups could be described as rapid onset, slower onset and resistant to nicotine addiction, they added.
Smoking has been linked to several diseases including lung cancer
and asthma. Lung cancer is the most common form of cancer in the
world and is extremely deadly. The American Cancer Society predicts
164,000 Americans will be diagnosed with the cancer this year and
156,000 will die of it. www.healthcentral.com/News/NewsFullText.cfm?ID=41099&storytype=ReutersNews
for additional information, or write: (1) Office on Smoking and
Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health
Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford
Highway, NE (Mail Stop K-50), Atlanta, GA 30341-3717 or (2) U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and
Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health.
"Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of disease and death in the United States. We have an enormous opportunity to reduce heart disease, cancer, stroke, and respiratory disease among members of racial and ethnic minority groups, who make up a rapidly growing segment of the U.S. population."—David Satcher, MD, PhD, Surgeon General
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