Contents
Hazards of Smoking
Women
and Smoking
Wrinkles and Smoking
Heart
Disease and Smoking
Smoker
and Spouse
Hazards of Eating
Too Much
Women and Folic acid
Three
In Four Americans are Out of Shape
Soy
Christopher Columbus first saw tobacco in the New World when natives on San Salvador Island gave him gifts that included tobacco in 1492. King Philip II of Spain had sent physician Francisco Fernandes to Mexico to discover what agricultural products the Mexicans were growing and using. He brought smoking of tobacco to Spain in 1558 and it is everywehre in the world now.
Women and Smoking:
"You've Come a Long Way, Baby!" Cigerette ads declared in 60s.
Smoking-related illness among women and teen-age girls is a full-blown
epidemic now. Unfortunately, more and more teen-age girls are falling
prey to the killer habit due to increased tobacco industry marketing, concludes
Surgeon General David Satcher in a report released March 27th. Smoking
is the nation's leading cause of preventable death, claiming more than
400,000 lives a year. Smoking has killed nearly 3 million women since the
surgeon general last investigated female smoking in 1980. It can cut short
a woman's life by an average of 14 years. Lung cancer is smoking's top
harm. Once rare among women, it's now the top female cancer killer, claiming
27,000 more lives each year than does the dreaded breast cancer.
Smoking also causes numerous other cancers, heart disease and other lung
diseases in male and female smokers alike. But women face some unique additional
risks, the nation's top doctor stressed: dangerous blood clots among users
of birth control pills; menstrual irregularities and earlier menopause;
infertility; bone-thinning osteoporosis; cervical cancer. That's in addition
to the dangers of smoking during pregnancy, which include low-birth-weight
babies, stillbirths, miscarriages.
Wrinkles and Smoking:
The link between smoking and wrinkles has been known for years, but
scientists haven’t worked out exactly how cigarettes age the skin.
In a study, scientists from St. John’s Institute of Dermatology in London
found that the gene, one implicated in wrinkles from sunbathing, was highly
active in smokers and silent in nonsmokers. The report in the Lancet medical
journal suggests smoking switches on a gene involved in destroying collagen,
the structural protein that gives skin its elasticity. It indicates
that something in cigarettes is injuring skin in a similar way to sun,
or at least through the same pathways,” said Dr. James Leyden, a professor
of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School.
Heart Disease and Smoking:
"Smoking is the single most important avoidable cause of heart disease
in adults, and this is showing that it applies at an early age as well,"
says Dr. Willett, who is also the chairman of the nutrition department
at the Harvard School of Public Health. Even if their cholesterol levels
are low, teen-agers and young adults who smoke have three times the level
of plaques in a major artery as those who don't smoke, according to a new
study that further confirms the early onset of signs of heart disease.
The study, published in the March 20 issue of Circulation, also found that
young obese males have twice the level of plaques in the right coronary
artery as males of normal weight. Plaques are thickened areas of the arterial
walls that eventually can block the vessel.
Cigarette smoking seems to have an acute effect that may increase the risk of a heart attack following each cigarette smoked, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association’s 41st Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.
Smoker and Spouse:
Women who live with smokers absorb five to six times more chemicals
linked to lung cancer than do women who live with non-smokers, a study
shows. In research published on March 7th in the Journal of the National
Cancer Institute, scientists said that an analysis of chemicals in the
urine of women who live with smokers demonstrates for the first time that
tobacco smoke carcinogens, chemicals that cause cancer, are absorbed by
non-smokers from second-hand smoke. Women who lived with smokers
had similarly elevated levels of nicotine and cotinine, a metabolic product
of nicotine. Other studies have shown that environmental tobacco
smoke increases the risk of lung cancer for non-smokers who work where
cigarette and cigar smoking is common, such as bars or taverns. Additionally,
studies have shown that children living in the homes of smokers have a
higher incidence of asthma and other respiratory problems.
Hazards of Eating
Too Much
Eating less and exercising more may reduce risk of breast cancer. A
research pointer in March BMJ, suggests that there is an important link
between the risk of breast cancer and nutritional status, through its influence
on concentrations of ovarian hormones (oestrogen and progesterone) produced
during the menstrual cycle. These findings are consistent with the view
that the level of breast cancer is much higher among women in industrialised
countries (where food is virtually unlimited) than among women in countries
with more traditional lifestyles.
Women and Folic acid
Women of reproductive age need to take at least 400 micrograms of the
B-vitamin folic acid daily. This amount will reduce the risk of having
a baby with certain birth defects such as spina bifida or other related
neural tube defects (NTDs). A state health department survey
in Michigan, found that most of these women did not take a folic acid supplement
or multivitamin on a regular basis, and were unaware of why folic acid
consumption is important to them. Women who did not take a multivitamin
on a regular basis were more likely to be young, obese, consumed inadequate
amounts of fruit and vegetables, and were at a lower education level.
Three
In Four Americans are Out of Shape
One in four U.S. adults exercised enough in the 1990s. Only 25.4
percent of adults met government recommendations for physical activity
in 1998 - virtually unchanged from the beginning of the decade, the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention said. Almost 30 percent reported no
physical activity at all. The CDC recommends a half-hour of moderate
exercise, like walking, five times a week, or 20 minutes of vigorous exercise,
such as running, three times a week. Inactivity can lead to obesity, which
is closely tied to diabetes. Diabetes kills 180,000 Americans a year, and
the disease is rising sharply.
Soy
Soy protein is “complete,” meaning that it contains all the essential
amino acids found in animal protein. For the first time, researchers
report that whether a person’s cholesterol levels are high or normal, those
who add soy to their diets may see an increase in levels of “good” cholesterol
in their blood. Results of the study are presented at the American Heart
Association’s 41st Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology
and Prevention. “There is increasing evidence that consumption of
soy protein in place of animal protein lowers blood cholesterol levels
and may provide other cardiovascular benefits,” according to the Nutrition
Committee’s statement. The association recommends that consumers with high
cholesterol consider eating three or more servings daily of products that
provide 10 grams of soy protein per serving to reduce their total and LDL
cholesterol levels.
Sreenivasarao Vpeachedu, March 31, 2001
Back to The Telangana Science Journal
Back to Vepachedu Home Page