Tag: smoking

8 ways smoking can negatively affect your health

Posted on by Delyne Momanyi

Smoking can occur in two ways which are passive and active. Passive involves taking smoke from the environment while active involves direct inhaling of smoke to your body. However smoke has negative impact to your body especially the lungs.

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Other effects include;

Lung cancer

Smoke is the greatest threat to the lungs. This is because it infects the oxygenated air leading to breathing problems.

Smokers of light cigarettes suffer same fate as those who use traditional ones

Infertility

This negatively affects men ability to perform in bed, while it can cause cervical cancer for women.

Blood clotting 

Smoke can cause blood clotting as it invades the blood vessels. This lowers the rate at which blood circulation occurs in the body.

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Blood cancer

Smoke contains some bacterial substances that once they invade the blood, it becomes infected. People who smoke a lot are likely to get leukemia compared to those who don’t smoke.

Dental infection

Most smokers normally have brown or yellow teeth. It can also lead to other tooth related diseases like tooth aches, dental inflammation and tamper with fresh breath.

Tokeo la picha la brown teeth

Severe coughs

Cigarettes contain too much nicotine and many other harmful chemicals. This tampers with the respiratory system causing constant coughs.

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Immunity

Smoking can lead to low appetite as it affects the loss of sense of taste. This hence makes ones body to become weak due to lack of food. Once the body is not well fed, the immunity lowers making it difficult in fighting diseases.

Impairment

Smoking while you’re pregnant can cause serious problems, too. Your baby could be born too early, have a birth defect, or die from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

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Smokers are up to 45% more likely to suffer from irregular heart beats – study

Posted on by vanessa njenga

Smokers are up to 45% more likely to suffer from irregular heart beats, a new research suggests.

For every 10 cigarettes smoked a day, the risk of suffering from atrial fibrillation increases by 14 per cent, a study found today.

Atrial fibrillation is responsible for as many as 30 per cent of all life-threatening strokes.

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How the research was carried out 

The researchers analysed 29 studies carried out in Europe, North America, Australia and Japan.

The study review had a total of 677,785 participants, of which 39,282 suffered from atrial fibrillation.

Results further suggest that all smokers are 32 per cent more likely to develop atrial fibrillation.

While those who have ditched the habit still have a nine per cent higher risk.

According to Mail Online, previous research suggests smokers take in fewer calories, therefore obese people may start smoking to help them lose weight, the scientists add.

Alternatively, smokers may be more likely to have other unhealthy lifestyle habits that lead to obesity, such as a poor diet or being inactive.

Man finds wife, and lover dead in garage after carbon monoxide poisoning

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Relatioship Goals: Prince Harry quits smoking as he prepares to start a family with Meghan

Posted on by Brian Ndung'u

Prince Harry has quit smoking for Meghan as they prepare to start a family after the royal wedding, it has been revealed.

According to the New York Daily News, the former Suits star has persuaded the royal to abandon his Malboro Lights and cut down on alcohol consumption ahead of trying for a baby.

‘One of the reasons she got him to quit smoking is because smoking affects sperm production,’ a source told the publication.

‘It’s no secret among friends that they want to start a family immediately.’

Harry is also said to have lost 10lbs since he and Meghan announced their engagement in December, thanks to workouts at the exclusive KX private members health club in Chelsea where membership costs £575 a month.

The royal has been spotted there at 7am on an almost daily basis, ‘getting his soldier body back’.

Meghan herself loves to keep fit and goes jogging to clear her head, as well as keeping up her yoga practice.

And it seems she’s also keen for Harry to share her healthy eating practices as he’s reportedly been working with Gabriela Peacock, the nutritional therapist at exclusive women’s club Grace Belgravia where Meghan is a member.

In December 2017, it was reported that Harry had stopped smoking at home at Nottingham Cottage in deference to Meghan.

‘Harry has promised no smoking at all at home. It’s not nice for Meghan as a non-smoker,’ a friend said at the time.

‘So there’s no more hanging out of the window for a quick puff.’

-Dailymail

Must Read: This Is How Smoking Harms UNBORN Babies When a Lady SMOKES While Pregnant

Posted on by Cynthia Misiki

The impact of cigarette damage to unborn babies has been revealed in a new stem cell study.

Scientists found that the cocktail of chemicals in cigarettes is particularly harmful to developing liver cells.

They developed a method of studying the effects of maternal smoking on liver tissue using embryonic stem cells.

The team, led by the University of Edinburgh, also discovered the cigarette chemicals affect male and female foetuses differently.

During their research they used pluripotent stem cells – cells which have the ability to transform into other cell types – to build foetal liver tissue.

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Liver cells were exposed to the harmful chemicals found in cigarettes, including specific substances known to circulate in foetuses when mothers smoke.

The study showed that a chemical cocktail – similar to that found in cigarettes – harmed foetal liver health more than individual components.

David Hay from the University of Edinburgh’s centre for regenerative medicine, said: “Cigarette smoke is known to have damaging effects on the foetus, yet we lack appropriate tools to study this in a very detailed way.

“This new approach means that we now have sources of renewable tissue that will enable us to understand the cellular effect of cigarettes on the unborn foetus.”

pregnant-smoker

The liver is vital in clearing toxic substances and plays a major role in regulating metabolism.

Smoking cigarettes, which contain around 7,000 chemicals, can damage foetal organs and may do lasting harm.

The findings of the latest research, which was carried out in collaboration with the Universities of Aberdeen and Glasgow, also highlighted the different effects of cigarette smoke on livers in male and female foetuses.

Male tissue showed liver scarring and female tissue showed more damage to cell metabolism.

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Prof Paul Fowler, director of the institute of medical sciences at the University of Aberdeen, said: “This work is part of an ongoing project to understand how cigarette smoking by pregnant mothers has harmful effects on the developing foetus.

“These findings shed light on fundamental differences in damage between male and female foetuses.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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E-cigs make quitting harder, contested study claims

Posted on by AFP

E-cigarettes, touted as an aide for giving up tobacco, in fact lowers the odds of quitting success, claimed research Thursday that was immediately criticised as flawed.

A research duo from the University of California, San Francisco reviewed the findings of 38 studies conducted across the globe into e-cigarette use, and concluded that smokers who use the devices were 28 percent less likely to quit smoking tobacco.

Published in the journal Lancet Respiratory Medicine, it claimed to be the largest review of e-cigarette’s value as a tool to help smokers kick the habit.

Looking at the data, it seemed that e-cigarettes in fact hampered attempts at quitting, the team said.

“The irony is that quitting smoking is one of the main reasons both adults and kids use e-cigarettes, but the overall effect is less, not more, quitting,” co-author Stanton Glantz said in a statement issued by the university.

“While there is no question that a puff on an e-cigarette is less dangerous than a puff on a conventional cigarette, the most dangerous thing about e-cigarettes is that they keep people smoking conventional cigarettes.”

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat up a liquid containing nicotine and artificial flavouring. The vapour is inhaled — “vaped” — and exhaled, much like a cigarette.

In the last few years, health experts and watchdogs have been embroiled in debate as to whether the gadgets, often not strictly regulated, are safe.

They can also be used with nicotine-free liquids, but some fear e-cigarettes could be a gateway to “real” cigarettes for teenagers.

Experts who were not involved in the new study were cautious, some scathing in their comments.

Peter Hajek, direct of the Queen Mary University of London’s Tobacco Dependence Research Unit, called it “grossly misleading”.

The work, he said, looked only at current smokers who had at some point used an e-cigarette — thus excluding any former smokers who may have used exactly such a device to quit.

Ann McNeill, a King’s College London professor of tobacco addiction, said the review was “not scientific”. It included data from two studies she had co-authored, but used in ways she claimed was “either inaccurate or misleading”.

“I believe the findings should therefore be dismissed.”

Steven Bernstein of the Yale School of Medicine, in a comment carried by The Lancet, said that despite concerns over the data, the study did raise questions about the usefulness of e-cigarettes as quitting aides.

Photo Credits : AFP

Can smoking drive you mad? Study suggests it might

Posted on by AFP

People who suffer from psychosis are about three times more likely to be smokers, but scientists have long scratched their heads over which one leads to the other.

On Friday, research suggested daily tobacco use, already known to cause cancer and stroke, may be also be a contributor to mental illness — not necessarily result of it.

Analysing data from 61 studies conducted around the world between 1980 and 2014, a team found that 57 percent of people first diagnosed with psychosis were smokers.

The studies contained data on nearly 15,000 smokers and 273,000 non-smokers, some of whom were diagnosed with psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia.

“People with first episodes of psychosis were three times more likely to be smokers,” said a statement from King’s College London’s Department of Psychosis Studies, which took part in the meta-analysis.

“The researchers also found that daily smokers developed psychotic illness around a year earlier than non-smokers.”

It has long been hypothesised that higher smoking rates among psychosis sufferers could be explained by people seeking relief from boredom or distress, or self-medicating against the symptoms or side-effects of antipsychotic medication.

But if this were so, researchers would expect smoking rates to increase only after people had developed psychosis.

“These findings call into question the self-medication hypothesis by suggesting that smoking may have a causal role in psychosis,” said the statement.

The team stressed they had not conclusively proven that smoking causes psychosis, saying further research must be done.

But the results did suggest that smoking “should be taken seriously as a possible risk factor for developing psychosis and not dismissed simply as a consequence of the illness,” they wrote.

The researchers theorised that changes in the brain’s dopamine system may explain the association.

Dopamine is a chemical messenger that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centres.

“Excess dopamine is the best biological explanation we have for psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia,” said King’s College psychiatric professor Robin Murray.

“It is possible that nicotine exposure, by increasing the release of dopamine, causes psychosis to develop.”

Photo Credits : AFP

Five Ways To Reduce Your Risk Of Breast Cancer

Posted on by Michelle Wangari

Cancer is often thought to be a mainly inherited disease. However, research reveals that just 5-10% of all cancer cases can be attributed to genetic defects – the remainder are driven by external factors such as diet and lifestyle choices.

By making decisions about our lifestyle, like the food we eat and the amount of exercise that we do, really could help cut the risk of developing the disease. Try these 5 quick and easy tips to help protect yourself:

1. Keep active
Research suggests a link between exercising regularly at a moderate or intense level for 4 – 7 hours per week and a lower risk of breast cancer. Physical activity can also help you maintain a healthy weight, which, in turn, helps reduce breast cancer risk.

2. Stop smoking
Accumulating evidence suggests a link between smoking and breast cancer risk, particularly in younger, premenopausal women and those who start smoking before they have their first child.

3. Mix it up
Diet is thought to be at least partly responsible for around 30% to 40% of all cancers. In particular, consumption of well-done red meat appears to be associated with increased risk of breast cancer. Studies suggest that women who cut down on red meat and choose alternative sources of protein – such as chicken, nuts and lentils – have a decreased risk.

4. Supplement your diet
A higher risk of breast cancer has been linked to low levels of vitamin D and poor intake of the compound lycopene (a powerful phytochemical found in tomatoes). ProfBiotics Breast (RRP £35.00, www.profbiotics.com) is a supplement developed by a leading cancer specialist, containing anti breast cancer nutrients in high dosages difficult to achieve through diet alone.

5. Limit alcohol
Available data suggests the more alcohol you drink, the greater your risk of developing breast cancer. Drink sensibly: the more you cut down on alcohol the more you reduce your risk.

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk

Dad who let baby die in hot car as he smoked weed jailed

Posted on by Michelle Wangari

A dad who let his 10-month-old foster daughter die in a hot car as he smoked weed and watched Game Of Thrones has been jailed for almost three years.

Seth Jackson, 29, admitted the involuntary manslaughter of Kadillak Poe-Jones but begged a judge not to jail him, saying “I’m not a monster”. He had originally been charged with murder.

Police said Jackson left the baby in a vehicle in Wichita, Kansas, for several hours on July 24 as temperatures in the city hovered around 32 degrees Celsius.

Jackson had picked up marijuana from a dealer and then returned home. He started using the drug without taking Kadillak out of the car, prosecutors said.

Jackson told police he forgot the girl was in the car and only realised when he saw a child on the Game Of Thrones episode he was watcing.

The teaching assistant rushed back to the car, but Kadillak was dead.

An autopsy has revealed that Kadillak – who Jackson had been fostering since she was two-weeks-old – died from hypothermia due to heat exposure.

Women quitting smoking should time it with menstrual cycle: study

Posted on by Michelle Wangari

If your nicotine cravings are strongest after your period, you’re not alone, according to a new study that says that women looking to quit smoking should take into account their menstrual cycle and start the process just after ovulation.

“Our data reveal that incontrollable urges to smoke are stronger at the beginning of the follicular phase that begins after menstruation,” says Adrianna Mendrek of the University of Montreal. “Hormonal decreases of estrogen and progesterone possibly deepen the withdrawal syndrome and increase activity of neural circuits associated with craving.”

Mendrek says to minimize withdrawal symptoms the mid-luteal phase is the best time to quit.

At this point, she says, increased levels of estrogen and progesterone after ovulation could relax the cravings.

In her study that was published in Psychiatry Journal, Mendrek worked with a participant group of 34 women and men who smoked more than 15 cigarettes a day.