Smoking Cessation News and Research

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Telephone support helps smokers quit

University of Minnesota Medical School and Minneapolis VA Medical Center research shows that smokers who receive support over the telephone when trying to quit are more successful in kicking the habit than those who receive help as part of routine medical care.

19 Mar 2006

Smoking interferes with the brain's ability to recover from the effects of chronic alcohol abuse

"This study suggests that for better brain recovery, it may be beneficial for alcoholics in early abstinence to stop smoking as well," concludes Dieter Meyerhoff, Dr.rer.nat., a radiology researcher at SFVAMC and the senior author of the study. Meyerhoff is also a professor of radiology at the University of California, San Francisco.

19 Mar 2006

Older people are far more likely to successfully quit smoking

Older women appear to quit smoking and stay off cigarettes in higher numbers than men in their age group, and older men and women are more likely to quit if they have recently received a diagnosis of cancer, according to researchers at Duke University Medical Center.

15 Mar 2006

Telephone care and counseling for smoking cessation may help smokers quit

Smokers who receive telephone care and counseling for smoking cessation have higher rates of stopping smoking than those who receive routine care by health care providers, according to a study in the March 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

15 Mar 2006

Association between levels of fine particulate matter pollution and mortality risk

Investigators who extended the Harvard Six Cities fine particulate air pollution study by eight years found that reduced levels of tiny particle pollution during this period lowered mortality risk for participants.

15 Mar 2006

Pregnancy complications increase risk of heart disease

Young women who have a range of complications during pregnancy, including preeclampsia, gestational diabetes or preterm birth, are at an increased risk of developing heart disease and of dying later in life

14 Mar 2006

Nabi Biopharmaceuticals receives Fast Track status for nicotine vaccine

Nabi Biopharmaceuticals today announced that NicVAX (Nicotine Conjugate Vaccine), the company's novel investigational vaccine being developed to treat nicotine addiction and prevent smoking relapse, has received Fast Track Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

9 Mar 2006

Taste genes may yield important information about who smokes and why they smoke

Recent research on the genetics of smoking has focused on genes that are thought to be related to nicotine metabolism, personality traits, and regulation of emotions.

27 Feb 2006

Nicotine patch and group support may be the best combination for helping women in public housing to stop smoking

This strategy helped nearly 50 percent of women smokers in an Augusta public housing unit quit smoking by the end of a six-week program while less than 8 percent of women in a comparison group had kicked the habit, says Dr. Jeanette Andrews, nursing professor at the Medical College of Georgia and principal investigator

20 Feb 2006

Stem cell injections may help those with severe peripheral artery disease

Indiana University School of Medicine scientists have begun a unique clinical trial using stem cell injections as a treatment that could offer hope to tens of thousands of people who face sores, ulcers and even amputations due to severe peripheral artery disease.

14 Feb 2006

Racial and ethnic differences in nicotine metabolism exist among adolescent smokers

New research by scientists with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health, suggests that some of the racial and ethnic differences underlying how adults' bodies metabolize nicotine also are at work during adolescence.

23 Jan 2006

New "reality" program will help those close to lung cancer victims quit smoking

Doctors in the U.S. have come up with a program which they hope will encourage the relatives and friends of lung cancer victims to quit smoking.

17 Jan 2006

Psychiatric patients who smoke

An editorial in the January 2006 issue of the Psychiatric Bulletin reviews the evidence for the effectiveness of gene-based smoking cessation packages, and asks whether they are appropriate for psychiatric patients.

10 Jan 2006

Smokers with a family history of lung cancer encouraged to undergo screening

To detect invasive lung cancer in its early stages, researchers urge current and former smokers who have a strong family history of the disease to take a lung function test and undergo screening with spiral computed tomography. The test is especially important should the previously diagnosed relative be young (around 50).

2 Jan 2006

Study reveals treatment and screening inequalities for patients with mental health problems

Patients with mental health problems may not be receiving the appropriate screening or treatments for illnesses including heart disease and stroke, a report from The University of Nottingham has shown.

7 Dec 2005

Physicians slow to prescribe newer heart drugs

An analysis of the treatment received by more than 100,000 heart patients has shown that physicians' prescription practices for drugs proven effective for treating heart disease has shown steady improvement over the past three years, cardiologists at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) have concluded.

7 Dec 2005

Hard to quit smoking even after cancer is diagnosed

According to a new study many people with cancer continue to smoke after their diagnosis, even though they are told that smoking can significantly compromise the outcome of any treatment.

29 Nov 2005

One-half of cancer patients continue to smoke after diagnosis

A pair of articles from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center makes the case that patients would receive better care if physicians and researchers would address the issue of tobacco use after a cancer diagnosis and monitor tobacco use during clinical trials that test new agents.

28 Nov 2005

Smoking cessation in cancer patients

A new report says despite a growing body of evidence that continued smoking after a cancer diagnosis has substantial adverse effects on treatment effectiveness, overall survival, risk of other cancers, and quality of life, up to one-half of cancer patients who smoke continue to do so or relapse after trying to quit.

28 Nov 2005

"Get With The Guidelines" programs improve care

After one year - Get With The GuidelinesSM programs used in hospitals significantly improved care for almost 30,000 coronary artery disease patients of all ages and sexes, according to research reported at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2005.

26 Nov 2005