What About Smoking Rate in United States?

Cigarette smoking is known to be a risk factor of causing breathing problems and lung cancer, and it is a major cause of heart disease for men and women, too. About 20 percent of all deaths from heart disease in the United States are directly linked to smoking. That is why cigarette smoking is named as the leading preventable cause of disease of deaths in the United States.

While authorities have been trying many means to curb the smoking rate, there are still more than 46 million American adults still smoke cigarettes, and it is estimated that smoking still kills 1,000 Americans a day.

According to a report released on September 7, 2010 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking rate remains unchanged in 2009 with about 1 in 5 adults still smoke regularly. Meanwhile, teen smoking has also not been improving, and remains at nearly 20 percent.

Since 2004, smoking rate has been flat after falling dramatically since the 1960s through heavy tobacco taxes. Perhaps the health authorities have lost momentum because of reductions of anti-tobacco campaigns, or a lack of funding to support programs that help smokers quit. Meanwhile, cigarette producers have come up with brilliant marketing strategies to increase their sales.

It is the second report that indicated nearly all children (98 percent) who live with a smoker have measurable tobacco toxins in their body worried health experts.

Environmental tobacco smoke (passive smoke or more commonly known as secondhand smoke) can cause chronic respiratory conditions, cancer and heart disease. It is estimated that each year, around 35,000 nonsmokers who exposed to secondhand smoke die from heart disease.

In surveying a total of more than 30,000 nonsmokers between 1999 and 2008, it was found that the detectable levels of cotinine had dropped over the 10 years, from about 52 percent to 40 percent. The reduction could be due to more smoking bans in workplaces, restaurants and other public places.

Nevertheless, the findings also highlighted some bad news. For example, most of the decline in smoking rate came about 10 years ago, and more than half of the children aged between 3 and 11 living in United States are exposed to secondhand smoke with no safe level of exposure. And more importantly, there has been virtually no improvement for children who live with a smoker.

Tobacco Can Be Useful, Are You Sure?

Smoking and tobacco have always been linked to unhealthy news. Smokers not only have the higher chance of getting heart disease, lung cancers, and other ailments, the secondhand smoke originated from them could also cause harmful effects to the people around them. Many studies have confirmed the claim.

However, an interesting finding by researchers from the University of Verona have found a healthy use for tobacco after they genetically bled modified plants containing a medicine that could stop Type-1 diabetes.

They published their findings on March 19, 2009 in the journal BMC Biotechnology and indicated out that they had produced tobacco plants containing a potent anti-inflammatory protein known as interleukin-10 (IL-10), which could help patients with insulin-dependent Type-1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases.

Agrochemical companies such as Bayer and Syngenta have been searching ways to produce complex protein drugs in plants but the progress has been slow.

The new finding is believed to mark the latest advance in the emerging field of molecular farming that might offer an alternative way of producing biotech drugs and vaccines at a cost cheaper than traditional factory systems do.

The European researchers believe the antibody medicines and vaccines, which are produced in cell cultures inside stainless steel fermenters, could eventually be grown more efficiently in fields. This is because plants are the world's most cost-effective protein producers. They have studied several different plants around the world, but tobacco is their firm favorite.

The researchers’ work has drawn the attention from tobacco giant Philip Morris, which is supporting a conference on plant-based medicine in Verona in June 2009.

Meanwhile, Swedish biotech company Diamyd has already been testing a conventionally produced GAD65 vaccine against diabetes in clinical trials. On the other hand, Protalix plans to submit its drug for regulatory approval in the United States and Israel in the 4th quarter of 2009.

Nicotine-Free Cigarettes On The Way, Are You Sure?

Smoking is bad for the health of smokers as well as non-smokers through second-hand smoke. Besides cancers, nicotine contained in cigarettes can cause heart disease, stroke and many other diseases.

Recently, Japanese researchers had identified a gene that transports nicotine through tobacco plants, which could help manufacture cigarettes free of carcinogen. Carcinogen is a substance or agent that can cause cancer or increase its propagation.

In a joint study by Kyoto University's Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere and Ghent University of Belgium, the experts found the gene Nt-JAT1 transports nicotine to vacuoles, or bags accumulating water and other substances in the cells of tobacco leaves. In their experiments, they confirmed that yeast with Nt-JAT1 carry nicotine. They published the results in the online version of the Proceedings of National Academy of Science in January 2009.

Tobacco plants were already known to produce nicotine in their roots and carry it to their leaves. The new finding makes it possible for the cigarette manufacturers to produce tobacco free from nicotine in the leaves.

This would not only help smokers stem nicotine addiction without the use of anti-smoking goods, but also benefit non-smokers as tobacco smoke is free from nicotine. Besides tobacco industry, such discovery could also be used for medical and agricultural purposes.

No one can actually predict whether cigarettes with little or no nicotine would well be accepted by the smokers, but the researchers argued that the gene could also transport compounds, which can be used as medicine.

It has been known that nicotine is part of a group of compounds known as alkaloids. In fact, some alkaloids extracted from plants are employed for fighting cancer. This new discovery could be used to make plants build up higher levels of useful alkaloids.

It is believed that other genes could be involved in carrying nicotine through tobacco plants, but the research on these genes has yet to be completed.

Can Risk of Early Death from Heart Disease or Cancer Be Reduced?

“One should adopt healthy lifestyle” in order to prevent from heart disease, and other medical disorders such as cancer, diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke, and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, how many of us will really take this seriously and keep that in mind?

Based on the data provided by 80,000 women in the United States who were between 34 and 59 years old, a long-term study by the Harvard School of Public Health began in 1980. The findings, which were published on September 17, 2008 online by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), indicated that women who eat right, exercise and never smoke tobacco were more than halve the risk of dying from heart disease or cancer.

During a period of 24 years, the volunteers participated in the study filled out detailed questionnaires regarding their physical activity, diet, weight, alcohol intake, and disease history. At the end of 2004, 8,882 of the women in the group had died. Record showed that 1,790 and 4,527 of these women died from heart disease and cancer respectively.

According to the calculation made by the researchers, smoking alone accounted for more than a quarter of the deaths. In fact, 55 percent of the death figure could have been avoided if these women had maintained slim, avoided fatty foods and exercised regularly, in addition to not smoking.

The study also found that a glass of wine or beer with dinner every night would offer some help in heart disease prevention. This confirmed earlier research.

Based on the results from the study, the researchers concluded that even small changes in the lifestyle could have a substantial impact on the reduction of mortality rates. Perhaps, people should start changing their lifestyle right away.

How Can Smoking Be Addicted?

Smoking is closely linked to diseases such as cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke. Each year, smoking kills about 5 million people and among them, female smokers and smokers in developing countries are the most vulnerable group.

When you ask smokers this question: "How did you addicted to smoking?" Most likely, he or she just cannot give you a definite answer because he or she simply could not remember how the habit was formed. However, a recent New Zealand study showed that smoking just one cigarette could simply cause tobacco addiction in some people.

The medical researchers asked 96,000 youngsters aged between 14 and 15 to fill in questionnaires, issued via schools between 2002 and 2004, about whether they smoked and whether they felt the need to continue smoking. They published their findings on February 20, 2008 in the Elsevier Journal of Addictive Behaviours.

Questions such as 'Do you ever have strong cravings to smoke?", 'Do you smoke now because it is hard to quit?', and 'Did you find it hard to concentrate because you couldn't smoke?' were included in the questionnaires to calibrate any dependence on tobacco.

As expected, youngsters who smoked frequently replied that they felt the urge to continue smoking. What the researchers found surprising was that those infrequent smokers also reported a carving. It was found that 46 percent of those smoked less than one cigarette a month had diminished control over the urge to smoke. Among teenagers who found difficulty to repress an urge to smoke, 10 percent and 25 percent had the impulse within 2 days and one month of smoking their first cigarette respectively.

The responses from the study confirmed previous research showing addiction rises as more cigarettes are smoked, and it starts after the first cigarette. Smoking one cigarette can simply prompt a loss of autonomy, as suggested by the researchers.