International Updates

9 November 2020 Children’s national hospital, Eurekalert: Cigarette smoking remains a leading preventable cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. And while adolescent cigarette smoking has declined over the past several decades, e-cigarette use presents a new risk for nicotine use disorder. a new study, published Nov. 9 in the journal Pediatrics, finds that …

E-cigarettes can be ‘gateway’ to cigarettes for teens with no prior intention to smoke Read More »

28 October 2020 American Heart Association, Medical Express: Current smokers faced nearly three times the risk of premature death from cardiovascular disease compared with people who never smoked, with the risk being higher among those who began smoking during childhood, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open …

Smokers, especially those who begin young, are three times more likely to die prematurely Read More »

26 October 2020 John P A Ioannidis and Prabhat Jha, The Lancet Global Health: Tobacco use is the top modifiable global health problem, but the global tobacco market grows 3% annually. Most anti-tobacco measures to date target demand (eg, higher excise taxes). However, the endgame might require reducing supply. The main counterarguments are financial (eg, …

Does the COVID-19 pandemic provide an opportunity to eliminate the tobacco industry? Read More »

16 October 2020 American Physiological Society, Medical Express: A new review suggests “heat-not-burn” tobacco devices may threaten cardiovascular health. The review is published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology. Heat-not-burn products—which may include noncombustible cigarettes—are relatively new in the U.S. In these, tobacco is heated to a lower temperature than traditional combustible cigarettes to …

‘Heat-not-burn’ alternative to e-cigarettes may harm heart Read More »

23 October 2020 Rachel Clun, The Sydney Morning Herald: Almost 170,000 Australians died last year, with four of the top five causes of death linked to smoking, while dementia-related deaths increased as the population ages. Australian Bureau of Statistics data on the causes of death showed the number of deaths increased by 6.8 per cent to 169,301 …

Smoking epidemic’ linked to four of top five causes of death last year Read More »

16 October 2020 Alex Ward and Victoria Allan, Daily Mail: E-cigarettes may not provide a safer alternative to smoking during pregnancy, warn researchers. Nicotine in any form could negatively affect a baby’s development, said the psychologists. They found the babies of mothers who smoked e-cigarettes during pregnancy had similar ‘abnormal reflexes’ to those whose mothers smoked …

Using e-cigarettes during pregnancy could harm a baby’s development, researchers warn Read More »

12 October 2020 Padraig Hoare, Irish Examiner : Teenagers are between three and five times more likely to start smoking if they have used electronic cigarettes previously, a new report has claimed. The Health Research Board (HRB), which is the lead funding agency for health research in Ireland, said its review into e-cigarette use found that e-cigarettes …

Teens who use e-cigarettes up to five times more likely to start smoking Read More »

7 October 2020 Sarah Whitten, CNBC: Eddie Van Halen, guitarist and co-founder of the rock band Van Halen, has died after a long battle with throat cancer. He was 65. Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang, confirmed the musician’s death on social media.  “He was the best father I could ever ask for,” he wrote in a …

Rock legend Eddie Van Halen has died after long battle with throat cancer Read More »

29 September 2020 Melissa Davey, The Guardian: Every one of 25 existing studies examined found people who use e-cigarettes are more likely to take up ‘combustible’ smoking Using e-cigarettes triples the chance of a non-smoker taking up regular cigarettes, a review of the public health impacts of vaping has found. Researchers led by the Australian …

Vaping increases the chances of regular smoking threefold, Australian review finds Read More »

MuChun Tsai, Min Kwang Byun, John Shin, and Laura E. Crotty Alexander, The Physiological Society: Abstract E‐cigarette aerosols are exceedingly different from conventional tobacco smoke, containing dozens of chemicals not found in cigarette smoke. It is highly likely that chronic use of e‐cigarettes will induce pathologic changes in both the heart and lungs. Here we …

Effects of E‐cigarettes and vaping devices on cardiac and pulmonary physiology Read More »