http://www.breathend.com Upper Missouri District Health Unit en-us Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.breathend.com/syndicate/rssnews.png http://www.breathend.com/news/ http://www.breathend.com/news/detail.asp?newsID=68
Funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the study can be found online today and will appear in the July 23 issue of Nicotine & Tobacco Research, a publication of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco.

"It is well-known that there are some serious health issues surrounding secondhand smoke," said Mark Wolfson, Ph.D., lead author on the study, professor and section head for the Section on Society and Health in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy. "While some college campuses are smoke free, others have virtually no restrictions on smoking, not even in the residence halls. There is a growing national movement to move away from that, but it still very much varies by campus. In this first study to evaluate SHS exposure among college students, we were really kind of floored to see how many, and how frequently, students are exposed to it."

For the study, researchers surveyed 4,223 undergraduate college students from 10 North Carolina universities – eight public and two private. They were asked questions about their drinking and smoking habits, demographics (age, gender, race, parents' education level), lifestyle (residence on- or off-campus, living in a substance-free dormitory, participation in a fraternity or sorority) and SHS exposure.

Of the participants, 83 percent reported having been exposed to SHS at least once in the seven days preceding the survey. Most of those exposures (65 percent) happened at a restaurant or bar, followed by exposure at home or in the same room as a smoker (55 percent) and in a car (38 percent).

Daily and occasional smokers were more likely than nonsmokers to report exposure, perhaps not surprising given that they are more likely than other students to have friends who smoke and to frequent or live in locations where smoking occurs, according to the study. Similarly, students who binge drink were more likely than other students to report exposure to SHS, likely reflective of the co-occurrence of smoking and drinking among college students.

Other factors that appeared to be associated with increased exposure to SHS included living in residence locations where smoking is allowed or locations associated with smoking, such as Greek houses and off-campus housing, being female, of white race, having parents with higher education levels and attending a public versus private school.

Nearly all nonsmokers (93.9 percent) and the majority of smokers (57.8 percent) reported that SHS was somewhat or very annoying.

"We were really shocked to see that 83 percent of students reported at least some exposure during the previous week," Wolfson said. "That said, we don't know if the exposure was at a nuisance level or at a level that might influence health. Either way, knowing what we know about SHS, lowering the rates of smoking is definitely something we should be seriously looking at on college campuses."

SHS contains at least 250 chemicals that are either toxic or carcinogenic and is, itself, considered a human carcinogen. In nonsmokers, exposure to SHS is estimated to be responsible for 3,000 deaths annually from lung cancer and 35,000 deaths from coronary heart disease, respiratory infections, asthma, sudden infant death syndrome and other illnesses in children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2002.

Recent studies suggest that most colleges do not have a comprehensive ban on smoking. In fact, in another study of the largest public university in each of the 50 states, researchers found that only 54 percent of schools banned smoking inside student housing and 50 percent banned smoking outside building entrances. As a result, college students are likely to be exposed to SHS regularly.

More than 10 million individuals were enrolled in 4-year degree-granting institutions in fall 2002, thus colleges represent a key setting for preventing exposure to SHS to promote public health.

Although college administrators may be limited in their ability to affect exposure in some locations, they have a responsibility to provide a safe and healthy environment for students, the authors wrote in their study, and should consider looking at ways to take steps to reduce smoking and concomitant exposure to SHS among their students. Such steps include enacting smoke-free campus policies and offering smoking cessation services, such as those recommended by the American College Health Association.

The NC Health and Wellness Trust Fund's Tobacco Free Colleges initiative promotes work to prevent initiation of tobacco use among young adults, eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke on college campuses, promote cessation and reduce health disparities among college students attributable to tobacco use.

Additionally, a new law in North Carolina prohibiting smoking in nearly all restaurants and bars will go into effect January 2, 2010.

"Debates about smoking restrictions, especially on college campuses, often revolve around considerations of individual choice," Wolfson said. "However, the issue of SHS exposure brings in the rights of all to a healthy environment. This is an issue which is beginning to resonate with many college administrators."

]]> Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.breathend.com/news/detail.asp?newsID=67 Non-smokers exposed to cigarette smoke at home or work are more than twice as likely as those not exposed to have major depression, according to a report at the American Psychosomatic Society meeting in Chicago.

It's believed to be the first U.S. study tying secondhand smoke to depression; another in Japan came up with a similar conclusion.

Unlike the Japanese research, this study confirmed exposure to smoke by measuring cotinine — a chemical that occurs in blood after breathing in smoke. There were cotinine levels for more than 3,000 non-smoking adults in a federal health study. An additional 92,000 non-smokers only reported if they lived with or worked around smokers. Everyone also filled out questionnaires on symptoms of depression.

Whether secondhand smoke was verified by the blood, those exposed to smoke were far more likely to have symptoms of serious depression, says study leader Frank Bandiera, a public health researcher at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Even working where smoking was allowed in public places more than doubled the risk of depression, he says.

There's strong evidence that smokers have higher rates of depression than non-smokers, but studies conflict on whether the smoking came first or vice versa, Bandiera says. Animal and human studies do show that smokers have more dopamine in their brains, which he says has been tied to anxiety and depression. So secondhand smoke might have the same effect on non-smokers.

Secondhand smoke also has been found to raise the risk for heart disease and lung cancer. Another new study not reported at the meeting found that inhaling other people's cigarette smoke could increase the risk of memory problems and dementia after age 50, say researchers at the University of Cambridge. Their research was published last month in the British Medical Journal.

About 4 out of 10 U.S. adults are covered by state or local laws against smoking in bars, restaurants and workplaces; 7 out of 10 are protected in at least one of these arenas, says Patrick Reynolds, president of the Foundation for a Smokefree America, an advocacy group.

Concern about health effects is accelerating, he adds. "There's been a tidal wave of state laws against smoking in bars and restaurants just in the last six years." Twenty-four states don't allow such smoking; 22 have passed their laws since 2003, he says.

]]> Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.breathend.com/news/detail.asp?newsID=66
Some 56.7 percent of nonsmokers living in the city were found to have elevated levels of the nicotine metabolite cotinine, compared with an average 44.9 percent of nonsmokers nationwide. Among the ethnic groups studied, nonsmokers of Asian descent were most often affected, with 68.7 percent of those examined showing elevated blood levels of cotinine.

The long-term health consequences of the finding are not known, but secondhand smoke is estimated to account for at least 35,000 deaths from heart disease and 3,000 deaths from lung cancer in nonsmokers nationwide each year.

Researchers with the health department said they were unsettled by the finding, which they called "puzzling."

New York City has fewer smokers per capita than many other American cities. Only 23.3 percent of adults in the city smoked at the time of the study, compared with a national average of 29.7 percent around the same time.

The study was published this week in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research. The analysis is based on data gathered during a survey of 1,767 adults ages 20 and older in 2004, more than a year after passage of the Smoke Free Air Act of 2002, which banned smoking in virtually all city workplaces, including bars and restaurants.

"This is not what we expected," said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, who led the city's initiatives to curb smoking and is one of the paper's authors. "It is a shocking number."

But while a higher percentage of New Yorkers appear to be exposed to secondhand smoke, nonsmokers in other parts of the country tend to have higher levels of cotinine if they are exposed at all, the study found.

That finding suggests that New Yorkers are breathing cigarette smoke at lower levels but more often, a consequence of living in an usually dense urban environment.

While Dr. Frieden suggested that New Yorkers are being exposed primarily through sidewalk contact with smokers, passing through crowds smoking outside doorways or waiting with smokers at bus stops, the tobacco expert Dr. Jonathan P. Winickoff suggested that apartment dwellers might also be exposed to smoke drifting from one unit to another within a building.

"Smoke doesn't know to stop at a doorway," said Dr. Winickoff, a professor at Harvard Medical School. "It fills the full capacity of every indoor location in which the cigarette is smoked."

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.breathend.com/news/detail.asp?newsID=65 Secondhand smoke is serious pollution
Fargo Forum
2/17/09
By: Allan Meckle , Rugby, N.D.

Recently, bar and hotel owners have been talking a lot about their right to allow smoking in their businesses. However, this decision does not impact only them. We all pay for the damages done by secondhand smoke. Employees and patrons of these businesses will be at risk for heart attacks and cancer, but we will all pay as health insurance premiums rise and health care costs keep climbing. Each year North Dakotans pay $250 million in medical costs and lost productivity because of smoking.

The truth is that we all have a right to be protected from the air pollution caused by tobacco. Our Legislature should fully support House Bill 1213 to protect our health and our pocketbooks.

Meckle is director of respiratory care at Heart of America Medical Center, Rugby, N.D.
]]> Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.breathend.com/news/detail.asp?newsID=64 Smoking ban protects others
Bismarck Tribune
Feb 15, 2009 - 04:05:26 CST
By ROBERTA NELSON
Bismarck

I was shocked to read the editorial in the Tribune entitled, "Proposed ban on smoking goes too far." While I'm a believer in free speech, sometimes one's thoughts are best kept to oneself.

I am a former smoker who quit this vulgar habit years ago when the health warnings came out. I was able to do this cold turkey. It wasn't easy nor fun, but I did it.

While you seem to know all the dangers of cigarette smoking, I hardly believe that HB1213 is trying "to protect people from themselves or pass along punishment." It is trying to protect people like me from having to be in public places with those who desire to harm my health. Smokers can puff their brains out in their own homes, yards or cars, provided they aren't exposing their children to smoke.

Your argument about legislation going too far states, "Alcohol has potential for danger and harm. So do cars and motorcycles, oil rigs, bicycles ..." This remark is so childish I can't believe I even typed it. Have you thought about the impact your so-called logic may have on youth? How about the health-care industry? Maybe you'd like to pay for my annual BCBS rate hike, part of which is caused by smoke-related illnesses.

Smokers experience "satisfaction" and "calming" when they light up. I wonder how satisfying and calming a cancer diagnosis will be. I lost my father to COPD caused by smoking and two uncles to lung cancer caused by smoking and currently have a dear friend battling this disease. ]]> Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.breathend.com/news/detail.asp?newsID=63 Sarah Fuchs, The Jamestown Sun
Published Saturday, February 14, 2009

In regards to HB 1213, which is currently being debated, I would like to say that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. New and old research continues to support this statement. Why then is it still debated?

The issue surrounding a comprehensive statewide smoking ban is not an issue of smoker versus nonsmoker, but an issue of public safety. The Bismarck Tribune said in its Feb. 10 editorial "Protecting people from those who smoke seems to make legislative sense. But it isn't the Legislature's job to protect people from themselves or pass along punishment."

I would agree. The bill doesn't protect smokers from themselves, nor does it punish those who choose to smoke. It would not eliminate the sale of tobacco or one's freedom to smoke in a private place. It simply protects the public from the dangers of secondhand smoke.

One of the arguments business owners who currently allow smoking have is it is their right to run their business any way they choose. However, they do not have the right to harm their workers or the public who choose to patronize their establishment.

Additionally under the current law, not every business has the right to choose to be smoke free or not. If the North Dakota Legislature passes HB 1213, all businesses will be treated equally under the law, and all people will be protected. One hundred percent smoke-free laws now cover more than 50 percent of the population in the U.S. and entire countries around the world. The state has chosen in the past not to lead this fight but maybe now the time has come to follow.

Sarah Fuchs

Jamestown]]> Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.breathend.com/news/detail.asp?newsID=62 Feb 13, 2009 - 04:05:12 CST
By MURIEL HEDRICK
Wahpeton

Decades of clear and convincing science make smoke-free indoor policy the right thing to do for North Dakota.

Bar and hotel owners have been talking a lot about their right to be a smoking business. This is also the issue of the right of the people who do not smoke and support their business.

On a recent trip to Bismarck, we stayed at a hotel with a lounge and restaurant. After spending hours at the hospital, we came back late and five of us went to the lounge to relax. The lounge was a haze of smoke. It was impossible to stay there because of the air quality.

A second experience was staying in a smoking hotel room. This was not our choice but it was the only one available at the time. We thought the room would be OK because the staff sprayed Febreze throughout the two rooms. By morning I could hardly breathe. The smoke that clung to the carpets, drapes, upholstery and bedding could not be removed by just spraying an air freshener.

According to the Centers for Disease control, each year North Dakotans pay $230 milling in medical costs and lost productivity because of smoking. House Bill 1213 provides an opportunity to reign in those costs and provide a level playing field for all patrons to enjoy public places. ]]> Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.breathend.com/news/detail.asp?newsID=61 Contact: Genevieve Maul
University of Cambridge

Second-hand smoke linked to cognitive impairment
The research, published today in the British Medical Journal, highlighted a 44% increase in risk of cognitive impairment when exposed to high levels of second-hand smoke.

Previous studies identified active smoking as a risk factor for cognitive impairment and dementia. However, this is the first large-scale study to conclude that second-hand smoke exposure could lead to dementia and other neurological problems in adults. (Previous findings suggested that second-hand smoke exposure could impair cognitive development in children and adolescents.)

The research, led by Dr Llewellyn, used saliva samples from nearly 5000 non-smoking adults over the age of 50. By measuring levels of cotinine (a by-product of nicotine) in their saliva and taking a detailed smoking history, the researchers were able to assess levels of exposure to second-hand smoke.

A range of neuropsychological tests were then used to assess aspects of brain function such as verbal memory (recalling words immediately and after a delay), numerical calculations, time orientation, and verbal fluency (naming as many animals as possible in one minute). These results were added together to provide a global score for cognitive function, and those whose scores were in the lowest 10 per cent were subsequently identified as suffering from cognitive impairment.

From their results they concluded that exposure to second-hand smoke may be linked to an increased chance of developing cognitive impairment, including dementia. The authors proposed a number of possible explanations for why exposure to second-hand smoke may increase the odds of dementia, including an increased risk of heart disease and stroke which are known to increase the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia.

Dr Llewellyn commented on the research, "We have conducted the first study to examine the association between second-hand smoke exposure and cognitive impairment in elderly non-smokers.

"Our results suggest that inhaling other people's smoke may damage the brain, impair cognitive functions such as memory, and make dementia more likely. Given that passive smoking is also linked to other serious health problems such as heart disease and stroke, smokers should avoid lighting up near non-smokers. Our findings also support calls to ban smoking in public places."]]> Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.breathend.com/news/detail.asp?newsID=60 Letter to the editor: Smoking in bars, hotels should not be a right in N.D.
Daphne Clark, Williston, N.D., The Jamestown Sun
Published Thursday, February 12, 2009

I am very concerned about the recent voice coming from bar and hotel associations claiming they have the "right" to do business as they please. They don't have the "right" to do many things as a business which is regulated. They don't have the "right" to sell alcohol to people under the age of 21 for instance. I'm sure if they would if they could, but the laws are meant to protect people. House Bill 1213 is a common sense amendment to current North Dakota law. The bill would bring bars and hotels in line with current public health standards preventing businesses from exposing employees to a known toxic pollutant: tobacco smoke.

I do believe the smoking issue is about rights, but the right I am most concerned about is the right of a single mom, working long shifts in a small town bar because it is the only place she can find employment, to live a long healthy life. I am concerned about the right of the hotel housekeeper, afraid to complain about the exposure to secondhand smoke for fear of losing her job, but wants to breathe clean air. It is easy for people to say they can find work someplace else. Those people have never been faced with poverty. No one should be faced with the choice of feeding their family now or getting a terminal illness later.

In America, we do not like having our rights taken from us. Why, then, are we ready to let our right to breathe clean air and good health go so easily? Join me in asking our legislators to support HB 1213 and protect our God-given rights.

Daphne Clark

Williston, N.D.]]> Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.breathend.com/news/detail.asp?newsID=59 Smoking is a deadly 'choice'

Feb 12, 2009 - 09:20:09 CST
By CHARLES ALLEN
Bismarck

The Feb. 10 Bismarck Tribune editorial got it right when it called smoking a death-inducing habit. Tobacco does contain hundreds of toxins and leads to a host of diseases and chronic conditions. As physicians, we see it every day.

But where the Tribune got it wrong was in their objection to HB1213, a bill designed to protect workers and the public from deadly secondhand smoke. Smoking in bars and hotels is not just a matter of individual choice.

The protection provided by HB1213 is not targeted only toward people who choose to visit a bar or a hotel room where secondhand smoke exists. It is more importantly targeted toward protecting the people who work in those places. People who rely on tips, need second jobs that fit into their schedules or work in a family business should not have to sacrifice their health in order to make a living.

And the costs of treating both these people who "choose" to smoke and their secondhand smoke victims affect us all -- at last count, $250 million each year for smoking-caused medical expenditures in North Dakota alone. Remember, for every eight deaths from active smoking, there is one death from secondhand smoke exposure. HB1213 is simply common sense regulation when it comes to keeping health care costs down.

And finally, the legislature represents the people of North Dakota, and the people have indicated an overwhelming support for a comprehensive ban. In a recent public poll, 66 percent of North Dakotans supported a comprehensive statewide public ban, and the city of Fargo also passed a comprehensive ban in 2008.

HB1213 deserves to pass, and it is our hope that legislators will vote with the people of North Dakota on this issue.

(Dr. Charles Allen is one of 14 doctors from North Dakota who were listed as those signing this letter. Others are Dr. Robert Bathurst, Bismarck; Dr. Robert Beattie, Grand Forks; Dr. Heidi Bittner, Devils Lake; Dr. James Buhr, Valley City; Dr. Paul J.T. Fetterly, Devils Lake; Dr. Jeff Hostetter, Huff; Dr. Jim Hughes, Bismarck; Dr. Eric Johnson, Grand Forks; Dr. Dale Klein, Mandan; Dr. Gordon Leingang, Bismarck; Dr. Nicholas Neumann, Bismarck; Dr. Jon R. Rice, Fargo; and Dr. Ben Roller, Bismarck.) ]]> Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT