Lawrence Garfinkel, the statistician who overcame his lack of a doctoral degree and training in oncology to become one of the driving forces in demonstrating that smoking causes lung cancer, died Jan. 21 in Seattle. He was 88. The cause of death was cardiovascular disease, according to his son Martin. Garfinkel oversaw the training of thousands of volunteers for the American Cancer Society and helped conduct two of the largest epidemiological stu ... Jump to full article >>

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Electronic cigarettes, widely used as an antismoking supplement, might cause lung cancer, allergies and mental instability if overused, the Korea Food and Drug Administration said yesterday. The products, often called e-cigarettes, are shaped like normal cigarettes but run on batteries and capsules of nicotine, although less than the average amount found in ordinary cigarettes. When one inhales on the product, a nicotine solution is vaporized in ... Jump to full article >>

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Of the 250 toxic chemicals found in secondhand (or “passive”) smoke, at least 50 are known to cause cancer. The Surgeon General says there’s no safe level of secondhand smoke and, according to the California Environmental Protection Agency, secondhand smoke causes an estimated 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 46,000 heart disease deaths among nonsmokers in the U.S. each year. Fortunately, most states now have strict laws about smoki ... Jump to full article >>

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Not only does cigarette smoke cause lung cancer, it worsens the disease by increasing lung inflammation, U.S. researchers have found. The team at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine conducted tests on mice with early lung cancer lesions and found that those repeatedly exposed to tobacco smoke developed larger tumors — and developed tumors more quickly — than those that weren’t exposed to tobacco smoke. Lung tissue inf ... Jump to full article >>

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If asthma, lung cancer, and emphysema aren’t enough to scare you off, it turns out smokers are two to four times more likely to develop coronary artery disease (CAD) than nonsmokers. Cardiovascular disease—including CAD, heart failure, and heart attack—is the leading killer in the U.S., claiming more than 860,000 lives in 2005. Smoking ups your risk for heart disease by decreasing the flow of oxygen to the heart and raises your risk for ... Jump to full article >>

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Drinking a cup or more a day of green tea may counteract the effect of smoking on lung cancer, especially in smokers who may not be genetically susceptible to the cancer, according to a Taiwanese researcher. ”The antioxidants may inhibit tumor growth,” I-Hsin Lin, a master’s degree student at Chung Shan Medical University in Taiwan, tells WebMD. She presented her findings today at the American Association of Cancer Research R ... Jump to full article >>

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