Topic: Smoking cessation

A UK-wide consultation on whether tobacco should be sold in standardised, or plain packaging, has been launched today by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley. 

The consultation will be open for responses from 16 April to 10 July with any person, business or organisation with an interest being encouraged to respond. 

Lansley said:

“Smoking remains one of the most significant challenges to public health. Each year it accounts for over 100,000 deaths in the UK and one in two long-term smokers will die prematurely from a smoking disease. 

Nicotine patches can improve cognitive performance in elderly people with early memory problems, a study claims.

The research, published in the journal Neurology, found volunteers suffering with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) performed better on tests analysing their long-term memory and attention while wearing a nicotine patch.

It is hoped nicotine-based therapy could be used in the future as a way of slowing the progression of MCI to Alzheimer's.

Lifestyle choices such as smoking and drinking cause almost half of all cancers diagnosed in the UK, a study suggests.

The review, published in the British Journal of Cancer, shows smoking was by far the biggest single cause of cancer with 23% of cases in men and 15.6% in women attributed to the lifestyle choice – nearly one in five cancers.

Second to smoking are men who fail to eat their five portions of fruit and vegetables a day and overweight women.

The British Medical Association (BMA) has called for a "bold" UK-wide ban on smoking in cars.

It is claimed the government's 'nudging' exercises have failed "time and time again" and it is now time for an outright ban.

Research shows the "restrictive internal environment" of cars exposes drivers and passengers to 23 times more toxins than a smoky bar.

The BMA said children in particular should be protected from the dangers of second-hand smoke as they absorb more pollutants and have under-developed immune systems.

Smoking causes people to lose part of their 'everyday' memory, suggests researchers.

It was also found that kicking the habit restores memory capacity to almost the same level as people who have never smoked.

Academics from the Collaboration for Drug and Alcohol Research group at Northumbria University tested the 'real-world' memory of 70 students - 27 current smokers, 18 previous smokers and 24 non-smokers.

The study found smokers remembered just 59% of the tasks.

Young people who find tobacco displays in shops attractive and who easily recall seeing the displays have a greater chance of becoming a smoker according to a new Cancer Research UK funded research study published in Nicotine and Tobacco Research.
 
Around 950 non-smoking 11–16 year olds from across the UK were interviewed by the researchers based at the University of Stirling. Susceptibility to smoking, recall and attraction to tobacco displays in shops were examined.

Most women in the UK significantly underestimate the risks of lung cancer, a survey suggests.

The survey carried out by the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation discovered that four in five women did not know the disease was the UK's biggest cancer killer in women.

Most women believed that breast and cervical cancer caused more deaths, even though lung cancer causes more fatalities than the other two combined, claiming 15,000 lives each year.

The number of attempts to quit smoking through NHS Stop Smoking Services in 2010/11 and the number of attempts that ended in success is more than treble that of 10 years ago, new figures from The NHS Information Centre show today.

In 2010/11 there were almost 788,000 quit dates set with the services in England and nearly 384,000 successful quit attempts; compared to 227,000 quit dates and just fewer than 120,000 successful attempts in 2001/02; according to Statistics on NHS Stop Smoking Services: England, April 2010 to March 2011.

Babies with bronchiolitis are twice as likely to need oxygen therapy and five times as likely to need the support of a ventilator if they are admitted to hospital from a home where a parent smokes, according to a study.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool found that children admitted to hospital from smoking households were more likely to be seriously effected by the condition than those from non-smoking homes, regardless of their family's socio-economic status.

Passive smoking raises the risk of impaired hearing in teenagers, a new study has warned.

Inhaling second-hand smoke almost doubles the chances of senso-neural hearing loss which results from problems affecting the inner ear, US-based scientists said.

Though the impairment is at a minimal level, it could affect the teenagers' performance in the classroom and their studies, the research found.

The study chose 1,500 children and teenagers aged between 12 and 19. They were given extensive hearing tests.

Pregnant women who smoke are at significant risk of giving birth to a malformed baby, a study shows.

Researchers found that the risk of having a baby with missing or deformed limbs was 26% higher for women who smoked during pregnancy.

Meanwhile they were 50% more likely to give birth to a baby with gastroschisis, a condition which causes parts of the stomach or intestines to protrude through the skin.

The study, which looked at 174,000 cases of malformation, found that in most cases smoking increased the risk of defects by more than 25%.