Anti-smoking
mementomori | November 28, 2007OpinionJournal.com editor James Taranto coined the eponymous term "The Butterfield Effect" after New York Times crime reporter Fox Butterfield, who could not understand why the number of inmates in federal and state prisons was increasing when crime rates were falling. Taranto concluded that perhaps Butterfield inadvertantly reversed the cause with the effect, viz., the correct way to interpret the phenomenom in question is that incarcerating more criminals (thus increasing the Sing-Sing population) reduces the crime rate by taking rapscallions out of circulation.
Now comes an interesting…
mementomori | August 30, 2007"Second-hand smoke to kill 2 million Chinese"
The more I hear about what is going on in China, the more I wonder if the goons running that country have any clue about the health catastrophe lurking at the palace doors.
Dr. Peymane Adab and K.K. Cheng of Britain's University of Birmingham, with colleagues in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, used data from a study of 20,430 men and women over the age of 50. Most had never smoked.
"More than half of never smokers reported exposure to passive smoking in their workplace and at home, with 28 percent reporting high levels of total adult exposure," Adab and…
mementomori | August 14, 2007Ever wonder what goes through the mind of someone smoking their first cigarette? I've often wondered what first-time smokers think of as they light up:
"I'm so excited."
"This tastes weird."
"I hope I'm doing it right."
"Finally I fit in."
"Better not mess with me anymore."
"This is relaxing me."
"It's so cool!"
"Dear (insert name here - Mom, Dad, Teacher, Police Officer, etc.): Go F*** Yourself!"
I wish I knew, and not just out of a morbid interest in consumers who willingly buy a highly addicting product designed to slowly ruin their bodies, if not take their life. I can't imagine that…
mementomori | July 3, 2007One billion people will die of tobacco-related diseases this century unless governments in rich and poor countries alike get serious about preventing smoking, top World Health Organization (WHO) experts said on Monday.
This is discouraging news and not just because of the tragedy of watching people voluntarily expose themselves to a premature death (slowly and painfully in many cases) by smoking cigarettes. Contrary to the demagogic wailing about overpopulation heard over the decades, many countries are not producing enough citizens to maintain their economies. Removing a billion or so…
mementomori | June 19, 2007Parents who smoke in front of their children expose them to the toxic chemicals found in passive cigarette smoke, but surely this is only seen in older kids, right?
"Researchers issue new warning on risks of smoking near babies"
Parents who smoke near their newborn babies are turning their children into heavy passive smokers and putting them in danger of breathing problems and cot [crib] death, a new study shows. Tiny babies with at least one parent who smokes have more than five times the usual level of cotinine - a chemical metabolite of nicotine - [compared to babies with non-smoking…
mementomori | February 20, 2007Message to all those who are thinking of smoking their first cigarette today:
Message to all those who know someone who has recently taking up cigarette smoking:
Message to all those who have quit smoking but are having difficulty fighting the craving for nicotine:
People who smoke cigarettes for a long period of time permanently alter their brain cells in such a way that mimics the damage done from other addictive drugs such as cocaine and heroin.
Researchers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) examined eight samples of human brain tissue from each of three groups: long-term…
mementomori | December 7, 2006Smoking linked to more osteoarthritis pain
You gotta love cigarette smokers, if for nothing else but their cognitive dissonance. I used to admire them for their naiveté but four decades after the surgeon general's report on smoking I think any claim of ignorance of the risks of smoking is about as believable as announcing the discovery of the Piltdown Man's girlfriend. Now on top of heart disease, COPD, cancer and rotten teeth we have this little experiment from the Mayo Clinic and two other institutions showing the effects of smoking on the knee joint. The results are not exactly what Big…
mementomori | November 18, 2006The following questions are for women only:
1. Have you had a pap smear done this year?
2. Do you smoke cigarettes?
3. Do you know if you are infected with HPV-16 (human papillomavirus type 16)?
If you answered "no" to #1 - see your doctor, please. If you answered "yes" to #2 - click on this link for some great information. If you answered either "yes" or "no" to #3 - please read the rest of this post.
The following question is for men only:
Are there any women in your life that you address as wife, girlfriend, significant other, POSSLQ, mother, daughter, niece, cousin, close friend or…
mementomori | November 9, 2006"Honey, what did you do with Mommy's lighter? Sweetie? Give it back to Mommy."
A new British study shows that children exposed to second-hand smoke have a 40% increase in the risk of developing bladder cancer in adulthood:
A team, partly funded by Cancer Research UK say their study into the link between smoking and bladder cancer adds to a growing body of evidence that suggests children and teenagers forced to breathe second-hand smoke are particularly at risk. Professor John Toy, Cancer Research UK's medical director, said the research justified the smoking ban. He said: "Although more…
mementomori | November 3, 2006Do you get a feeling of relief whenever you see an anti-smoking advertisement directed toward teenagers? If you do you may want to sit down. Now there is a freshly published study out of Australia that concludes the following:
Exposure to tobacco company youth-targeted smoking prevention advertising generally had no beneficial outcomes for youths. Exposure to tobacco company parent-targeted advertising may have harmful effects on youth, especially among youths in grades 10 and 12.
It seems that anti-smoking ads aimed toward parents, such as the "Talk. They'll Listen." campaign only serve…
mementomori | October 4, 2006As a medical oncologist I'm not particularly a fan of cigarette smoking. In fact I have been known to try to coerce people to cease and desist from the smelly habit. Because of the siren song of nicotine and its addictive properties, however, I realize that many smokers are both mentally and physically unable to simply walk away from a luscious pack of cigarettes. Perhaps they lie awake in bed at night, frustrated with their addiction and vowing to throw away the coffin nails for good cometh the dawn. Perhaps they invest in stop-smoking classes, nictotine-replacement products, pills or…
mementomori | September 6, 2006Four leading cancer organizations - the Center for Disease Control, cancer registries, the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society have supplied demographic data to once again assemble and produce the "Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975-2003, Featuring Cancer among U.S. Hispanic/Latino Populations." What is cancer's status in this fair country these days, you ask? Here is their conclusion:
The report includes comprehensive data on trends over the past several decades for all major cancers. It shows that the long-term decline in overall cancer death…
mementomori | June 28, 2006Secondhand smoke dramatically increases the risk of heart disease and lung cancer in nonsmokers and can only be controlled by making indoor spaces smoke-free, according to a comprehensive report issued yesterday by US Surgeon General Richard Carmona.
Uh oh...Humphrey Bogart call your office. It looks like this is the end for the 48 million smokers in this country who love to light up a Luckie in the neighborhood saloon or beanery. I wonder if our airports will be able to accommodate the mass number of citizens emigrating to Parisian apartments? How long will it be before the Zippo lighter…
mementomori | June 13, 2006In 1994 researchers from Denmark studied the faces of 13,186 men and women between the ages of 30 and 80 and recorded the severity of wrinkling in the right lateral part of the orbit where "crow's feet" appear. They then checked their lung capacity using a standard measurement found in pulmonary function testing and, after stratifying the subjects according to age, noticed a curious finding among current and previous smokers:
...subjects with highest wrinkle scores had on average FEV1/FVC% that was 1.2-1.9% lower than in subjects with lower wrinkle scores. No association between facial…