Babies of women who smoked during pregnancy have blood pressure problems at birth that persisted through the first year of life, a new study finds. “What is of concern is that the problems are present at birth and get worse over time,” said Gary Cohen, a senior research scientist in the department of women and child health at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and lead author of a report in the Jan. 25 online edition of Hypertension. “ ... Jump to full article >>

What kind of smoker are you? People have all kinds of reasons to smoke: enjoyment, stress relief, weight control, peer pressure. Smokers may have different reasons for lighting up, but they all have one thing in common: They should quit. Knowing why you smoke may be the first step in that direction. Check out these profiles of the seven most common types of smokers. Which one are you? Skinny smoker The profile: You’re worried about your weight ... Jump to full article >>

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 fo ... Jump to full article >>

There’s a species of smoker among us that is common yet poorly understood. Their habitat consists of parties, barbecues, and the sidewalks outside bars and restaurants. They prefer to scrounge for their cigarettes, and if they do buy a pack, they’re apt to nurse it for a week or more. You may hear them say, “I’m not a smoker,” or “Only on weekends.” These are “social smokers”—and there are more of them ... Jump to full article >>

New research provides evidence that the average cigarette is crawling with germs, including bacteria that cause respiratory disease. But as one spokesman for a tobacco company pointed out, the authors of the new study aren’t sure what, if any, hazard the germs pose. And exposure to bacteria is nothing new: Microbes surround us every day of our lives. Still, the findings raise plenty of questions, said study lead author Amy R. Sapkota.  ... Jump to full article >>

For the last six years, Dennis Boudreaux has watched customers come from as far away as Virginia Beach to buy cigarettes at his store in Isle Of Wight County. They are the cheapest smokes in Virginia because there is no local tobacco tax but if that changes Dennis won’t have a choice, he will have to raise his prices. “We have to pass on the cost directly to the customer.” You can blame it on International Paper closing down t ... Jump to full article >>

Cigarettes are “widely contaminated” with bacteria, including some known to cause disease in people, concludes a new international study conducted by a University of Maryland environmental health researcher and microbial ecologists at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France. The research team describes the study as the first to show that “cigarettes themselves could be the direct source of exposure to a wide array of potentially p ... Jump to full article >>

With backing from major physician groups nationwide, should the FDA reconsider its stance on the now infamous e-cigarette? In July of this year, the Food and Drug Administration released a study that condemned electronic cigarettes as an unsafe alternative for smokers, but not all physicians are convinced that the study was accurate or even completely transparent to the tax payers that fund them. “We urge FDA to make public the laboratory ... Jump to full article >>

When the federal government raised the tax on the loose tobacco people use to roll their own cigarettes a staggering 2,000 percent, companies stopped selling “loose tobacco.” Smokers stopped buying it. Very little of the projected tax revenue of $35 million per month appeared. Yet smokers still roll their own cigarettes and still legally buy the ingredients. Pipe tobacco is taxed at a rate of $2.83 per pound. Loose cigarette tobacco ... Jump to full article >>

Smokers could soon break their habit with a jab that stops nicotine from being addictive by preventing it from entering the brain, scientists claimed. As a result the vaccine stops the smoker from deriving any pleasure from inhaling a cigarette. In human trials the vaccine proved successful in 50 per cent of cases. Help: Smokers could quit using the vaccine that stops nicotine entering the brain This would help relieve the NHS of the heavy burd ... Jump to full article >>