Cigarettes Smoking Exposure Can Lead to Diabetes

A new study from Charles Drew University found that adults exposed to environmental tobacco smoke had a higher measure of insulin resistance than nonsmokers without the smoke exposure. With insulin resistance, the body produces insulin but does not use it properly. It can eventually lead to type 2 diabetes. "Passive cigarette smoking" Researchers measured "passive cigarette smoking" by how much cotinine they found in the blood of participants. Cotinine is a substance related to nicotine that measures a person's exposure to tobacco smoke.

Secondhand Smoke Ordinance, the Buellton City

The Buellton City Council gave first approval to a law that snuffs out smoking in most public places. By a 4-1 vote, the council on May 24 voted to ban smoking within 20 feet of businesses and at bus stops and transit centers, in retail and service lines, in 75% of outdoor dining areas and other places. The ban would not apply to outdoor seating sections of bars.

Secondhand Smoke and Heart Function

The findings could have major public health implications because this type of damage has been associated with atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), which can lead to heart attack or stroke. "Breathing in very low levels of secondhand smoke -- the same amount many people and children would encounter out and about in the community -- appears to impair one's vascular function after just 30 minutes of exposure," the study's lead investigator, Dr. Paul Frey, of the division of cardiology at San Francisco General Hospital, said in a news release from the American College of Cardiology.

Student Smokers Should know More About Smoking

It’s been almost two years since smoking was prohibited in Michigan bars, restaurants and businesses, so I would think that my encounters with smokers would have decreased. Yet, here on MSU’s campus, I still come in contact with the effects of smoking on a daily basis. In my opinion, college campuses should be some of the least likely places to find smokers because this generation should be well aware of the health risks associated with it. Now, student smoking does have its personal effects on me. For starters, my day is ruined when I have to sit next to someone who has just been smoking for a two-hour lecture. And don’t even get me started on when I get behind a smoker and have to inhale secondhand smoke all the way to my next class.

Secondhand Smoke and Heart Disease

Researchers found that of 205 non-smokers with heart failure, those who regularly breathed in secondhand smoke reported more problems in their day-to-day functioning -- physical and emotional. The findings, reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine, do not prove that other people's smoke was to blame. But they add to the large body of evidence tying secondhand smoke to heart disease, researchers say. A number of studies have found that non-smokers who regularly breathe in other people's tobacco smoke have an increased risk of developing heart disease. This latest study suggests that secondhand smoke may also affect a heart failure patient's quality of life, according to the researchers, led by Dr. Kirsten E. Fleischmann of the University of California, San Francisco.

Smoking Policy Hits Turbulence

A staff report recommending a policy to eliminate exposure to secondhand smoke in open public spaces in Southgate has run into some resistance. According to the proposed policy no one could smoke cigarettes fashionable within 30 metres of any sports field or play area and within a 15 metres radius of the entrance to any municipal building. For Coun. Dale Pallister it's just more regulations that are virtually unenforceable. "You get so many rules that they reach the place of how do you enforce them all . . . when you need a bylaw enforcement officer to say that you're not to stand 100 feet away from the arena door, or whatever distance it was they came up with, it just seems to me that life doesn't have to be that complicated," he said during Wednesday's committee of the whole meeting.

Students Plan to Ban Smoking in Public Areas

If a group of Orland High School students has its way, the city could ban smoking outside the doorways of businesses, in outdoor eating areas and in public parks. About a dozen teens sporting anti-tobacco T-shirts and armed with posters and jars of cigarette butts, lobbied the City Council on Monday to put a smoking ban in place. The council took no action, but will discuss the matter on Nov. 7. Dinesh Khalasi, of Students Working Against Tobacco, explained many communities have bans to protect residents and visitors from the dangers of inhaling secondhand smoke. He noted clean-ups by the group revealed a large concentration of cigarette butts by park picnic tables and the baseball field in Lely Park — places where families and young children are likely to be. The group reported 250 cigarette butts were picked up from the grass and picnic areas of the parks within 90 minutes. The teens gathered butts from Vinsonhaler, Library and Lely Aquatic parks among others in the area.

Tobacco Tax May Cut Cigarette Consumption

Reforming the tobacco tax system may be the key to discouraging cigarette consumption and reduce the growing incidence of tobacco-related illness such as lung cancer and heart disease.

Cheap cigarettes is one of the reasons why the Philippines with over 17 million smokers - has one of the highest smoking Prima Lux prevalence rates in the world. This is expected to lead to huge socio-economic losses.

According to a study by Health Justice Philippines, around 35, 000 Filipinos die every year due to tobacco-related diseases.