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If you begin smoking at an early age and continue to smoke throughout your life you have tripled the risk of developing a severe progression in multiple sclerosis.

Although previous studies have found a link between cigarette smoking and an increased risk of MS, there has been no research to date on the association between smoking and the clinical course of the disease. Using the British General Practice Research Database (GPRD), Hernán and a team of investigators from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston University, and the University of California School of Medicine at Irvine found that cigarette smoking, one of the most important modifiable risk factors for MS, may more than triple the risk of disease progression.

Overall, the risk of developing secondary progressive MS was more than 3 times higher in smokers than in nonsmokers with RRMS. "This finding suggests that cigarette smoking may transform, or hasten the transformation of, relapsing-remitting forms of the disease into progressive forms," Hernán and colleagues said. The study also confirmed the results of previous investigations showing that smoking moderately increases the risk of developing MS.

While the presence of other lifestyle factors, such as diet and physical activity, could possibly have affected the outcome of this study, those factors were unlikely to have altered the strong association between smoking and the MS clinical course, the authors added.

SOURCE

Labels: multiple sclerosis, smoking

A University of Iowa study is apparently the first to make a connection between a rare, hereditary premature aging disease and cell damage that comes from smoking. The study results point to possible therapeutic targets for smoking-related diseases.

The findings appear in the Feb. 6 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

While people know that smoking is bad for health, not all the mechanisms by which smoke damages the body are fully understood, said Toru Nyunoya, M.D., assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine and a pulmonologist with University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

"Smoking can accelerate the aging process and shorten the lifespan by an average of more than 10 years. We focused on what happens within the lungs because of the similar aging effects, including atherosclerotic diseases and cancer, seen in people with Werner's syndrome and people who smoke," said Nyunoya, whose study was based in the lab of senior author Gary Hunninghake, M.D., University of Iowa professor of internal medicine and a researcher with the Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Werner's syndrome is a genetic disorder that causes premature aging due to loss-of-function mutations in a gene encoding a member of the RecQ helicase family. Both Werner's syndrome and cigarette smoking accelerate aging.

Labels: aging, smoking

Tobacco marketing in South Korea has been deliberately aimed at girls and young women. Research published in the open access journal Globalization and Health has shown that transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) are using tactics long used with devastating effect in Western countries to snare new female smokers in Asia.

Of course they are. I cannot tell you how many young girls got into bad smoking habits because they wanted to maintain a slender figure or lose weight. One of the side effects of nicotine is that it is an appetite suppressant. So it's only natural that tobacco companies would use that to their sick advantage.

The tactics used recall advertising campaigns carried out in the United States and Europe since the 1920s that link smoking with feminism and the liberation of women. According to Kelley Lee from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, "Product design associating smoking with body image and female emancipation, familiarly deployed elsewhere, have been extensively used in South Korea to appeal to female smokers. So-called "ultra light", "low tar" and "superslim" cigarettes have been particularly effective, falsely suggesting certain brands offer a healthier or safer option, as well as appealing to female concerns about weight gain. Tighter restrictions on the use of such descriptors, alongside public education on the fallacy of such claims, are badly needed in South Korea".

Lee concludes, "The implementation of comprehensive tobacco control measures in South Korea, as set out under the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, is urgently needed to protect and promote the health of Korean women and girls".

SOURCE: Globalization and Health

Globalization and Health is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal that provides an international forum for high quality original research, knowledge sharing and debate on the topic of globalization and its effects on health, both positive and negative.

Labels: smoking, tobacco, women