CAIRO // There are few totems to Egyptian masculinity as potent as the cigarette. From the capital to tiny villages, men from all walks of life can be seen lounging against car doors and in cafe chairs, enjoying what remains Egypt’s cheapest thrill.
But beginning this month, the ministry of health has employed a novel method [...]

JEDDAH — The number of smokers in Saudi Arabia has increased to six million, including 600,000 women. There are also 772,000 teenage smokers, including intermediate and secondary school students.
According to Dr Mohammed Al Baddah, supervisor of an anti-smoking programme at the health ministry, cigarette smoking in the kingdom was growing at an alarming rate.
Saudi Arabia [...]

According to the office on smoking and health (OSH), tobacco use is responsible for over 5 million deaths every year – they go on to say that if current trends prevail, more than 8 million people will die from a tobacco related illness annually by 2030. Cigarette smoking alone is responsible for 443,000 deaths every [...]

WHO’s theme for World Cancer Day, 2010 is that cancer can be easily prevented. It focuses on simple lifestyle measures that can greatly reduce the chance of getting cancer. These measures include quitting smoking, along with drinking less alcohol, eating health food, living an active life and checking infections that cause cancer.
Tobacco use – either [...]

A new group is working to snuff out smoking in Kenosha, Racine and Walworth counties.
A tri-county tobacco-free coalition recently replaced separate organizations in Kenosha and Racine. Joyce Erickson, the coordinator of the old Kenosha coalition, is leading the new group.
She said state budget cuts were to blame for the consolidation. But in spite of reduced [...]

ATLANTA 2010/02/04 -The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given a grant of $7 million over five years to the American Cancer Society to lead and coordinate the African Tobacco Control Consortium, a global coalition of public health-oriented organizations focusing on using evidence-based approaches to stem the tobacco epidemic in Africa. In addition to the [...]

Why are we asking this now?
Yesterday the Government announced a 10-year strategy to halve the number of smokers from 21 per cent to 10 per cent of the population by 2020. That means persuading four of the eight million current smokers to give up, or avoid starting, the habit. The number has fallen by a [...]

New research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine may help more smokers keep their New Year’s resolution by helping them quit smoking. Extended use of a nicotine patch – 24 weeks versus the standard eight weeks recommended by manufacturers – boosts the number of smokers who maintain their cigarette abstinence and helps [...]

Dubai: The slogan of the International Union against Cancer this year is: “If you love someone, tell them they stink”.
You can click on a heart-shaped button on the Union’s website and send that message to someone who smokes.
The World Health Organisation (Who) believes tobacco is the single largest preventable cause of cancer in the world [...]

Cairo Khalid Salah, 35, remembers the first day he picked the habit more than 20 years ago. “It started as a challenge from my friends, who said that smoking makes one look like a real man,” Salah, a taxi driver in Cairo, recalls. “I believed them, and have been a smoker of around two packets [...]

One of the world’s leading anti-tobacco fighters, Prof. Gregory Connolly of the Harvard School of Public Health, advises Israel to abandon its policy of optional “smoking rooms” in public places and to completely bar lighting up in such locations instead.
In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post on Monday during his second visit to the [...]

An Australian-led study has confirmed a lack of serotonin was a common factor with babies who die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
The breakthrough offers a “much clearer direction” in the search for a cure for the mysterious syndrome, which still claims one in 2,000 apparently healthy children.
Researcher Dr Jhodie Duncan, of the Melbourne-based Florey [...]

QUINCY — Home oxygen equipment is a lifesaver. A medical device, it allows patients with breathing problems to stay in their homes and lead a normal life. But like any medical device, it can be deadly.
In Massachusetts several fatal fires have moved investigators to look more deeply into the dangers of home oxygen, especially when [...]

The legendarily hedonistic Rolling Stones guitarist reportedly stopped drinking a few months ago over health concerns, but is refusing to listen to medical risks and quit his favourite cigarettes.
A friend said: “Keith simply can’t start the day without a cigarette. Smoking is now Keith’s one and only vice and he isn’t stopping.”
Keith, 66, was initially [...]

Smoking increases the chances of being overweight according to a study by the University of Navarra
Tobacco smoking increases the likelihood of being overweight, as shown by a study carried out at the Department of Preventive Medicine of University of Navarra and published in the latest issue of the Revista Española de Cardiología. The researchers who [...]

If you’re trying to quit smoking, wearing a nicotine patch for up to six months—far longer than is generally recommended—may increase your chances of staying smoke-free, a new study has found.
Even with the longer treatment, however, your chances of successfully quitting are only about 1 in 7, according to the study, which was funded by [...]

Lower levels of the hormone serotonin may help explain why some infants succumb to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), according to a new study.
In the U.S., SIDS deaths have declined by more than 50% since 1990. Experts say that’s partly due to practices believed to minimize the risk, such as putting infants to sleep on [...]

Fitchburg Fire Chief Kevin Roy remembers a devastating fire caused when an ill woman lit a cigarette while connected to an oxygen tank for her medical problems.
The cigarette sparked a fire on the oxygen tank, badly burning her and causing severe smoke inhalation, which ultimately caused her death, Roy said.
“People that are on oxygen should [...]

With some gentle prodding, new parents can be motivated to make more attempts to quit smoking, a new study says.
The trick seems to be getting pregnant women and new moms and dads to understand the dangers of secondhand smoke to unborn and newborn babies, researchers say in the March issue of Pediatrics, which appeared online [...]

Time and time again I see stories in the media about those anti-tobacco advocates. Well it’s time to fess up. I’m one of them.
The anti-tobacco advocates include the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Environmental Protection Agency, Faith United Against Tobacco, Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program, My Last [...]

Tobacco-free group to meet
The Grand Forks Tobacco Free Coalition will hold a community forum from 6 to 8 tonight on the sixth floor of the Grand Forks County Office Building, 151 S. Fourth St., to discuss the future of adopting smoke-free workplace rules in Grand Forks.

Stop smoking classes set
Freedom from Smoking classes will begin at [...]

Call it eating for a cause. Plan your menu in a way that helps knock out the third leading cancer for both men and women: colorectal cancer. Here’s how:
•BREAKFAST: Add sliced bananas — a good source of vitamin B-6 — and you could reduce your risk of colorectal cancer by 20 percent to 30 percent. [...]

A UCSF analysis of published studies on the relationship between Alzheimer’s disease and smoking indicates that smoking cigarettes is a significant risk factor for the disease. After controlling for study design, quality of the journals, time of publication, and tobacco industry affiliation of the authors, the UCSF research team also found an association between tobacco [...]

Smokers these days have been all but banished to sidewalks or cramped smoking lounges, but those smoking lounges may make a bad habit even worse for smokers’ health
A new study published in the journal Environmental Health finds that people who smoke in confined spaces inhale enough secondhand smoke to add significantly to their health risks [...]

If you smoke and itch to quit, don’t look to the state for help. Despite an annual infusion of about $300 million from the landmark tobacco settlement, Illinois continues to spend less than most others on programs designed to prevent people from lighting up, according to a national ranking.
Illinois finished 41st out of the 50 [...]

The tobacco in cigarettes hosts a bacterial bonanza — literally hundreds of different germs, including those responsible for many human illnesses, a new study finds.
“Nearly every paper that you pick up discussing the health effects of cigarettes starts out with something to the effect that smokers and people exposed to secondhand smoke experience high rates [...]

UCD researchers have shown that cigarette smokin’g dampens down immune cells that help protect the body from viruses and cancer. And the stifling effects are even more pronounced in obesity.
The study, published on Monday in the journal PLoS ONE , looked at cells of the immune system called “natural killer cells” (NK cells).
They sound fierce, [...]