Gene risk
A person's genes may be the reason they become addicted to alcohol or nicotine.
Research on 3000 twins suggests that inherited factors cause 60% of nicotine dependence and 55% of alcohol dependence.
Researchers say that this finding is important to discouraging children from taking up smoking or drinking.
Many children feel they will be able to stop whenever they want.
If they are warned that they may not be able to stop, it may reduce the risk of them starting, the researchers say.
(Archives of General Psychiatry 1999;56:655-661)
Entered
from Zest South Pacific Division health newsletter September 3, 1999
Alcohol hits nutriments
Drinking alcohol affects the body's ability to absorb and metabolise food. It can especially leave your body short of calcium, zinc, magnesium and B group vitamins.
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Vitamin C risk
Smokers are more likely to have Vitamin C deficiency because smoking increases the body's metabolic requirement for Vitamin C.
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Stopping kids smoking
Making it hard for kids to get cigarettes can help lower rates of
adolescent smokers, reports Reuters news service. A study
in the August issue of the American Journal of Public Health
provides compelling evidence that policies
designed to reduce youth access to tobacco can have a
significant effect on adolescent smoking rates.
Dr. Jean L. Forster from the University of Minnesota
School of Public Health in Minneapolis and colleagues
held a randomized trial in
14 Minnesota communities. A Reuters news story reports: `Seven communities were part of a
32-month trial called TPOP (Tobacco Policy Options for
Prevention) ``...designed to test the effects of changes in
local policies to limit youth access to tobacco,'' and seven
served as control communities, the researchers explain. All of the intervention communities passed ordinances
designed to guarantee ``compliance with tobacco age-of-sale
laws,'' Forster and colleagues note. For example, the
intervention communities raised the license fee for vendors,
''...added a graduated system of civil penalties for the license
holder, and banned tobacco vending machines,'' according to the
authors. They report that ``6 (communities) required that at least
two unannounced compliance checks be carried out annually... 5
prohibited self-service displays of tobacco products, and 4
included fines for both salespersons who made illegal sales, and
minors who attempted to purchase tobacco.'' Police records showed that ``compliance checks had been
carried out... in all 7 intervention communities,'' the authors
add.. Overall, the ordinances resulted in less pronounced
increases in adolescent daily smoking when compared with control
communities, which showed increases in the daily, weekly, and
monthly smoking rates. ``In summary, the results indicate that comprehensive
ordinances passed in all intervention communities resulted in a
lower smoking prevalence among young adolescents in these
communities than in control communities,'' the authors write. The researchers acknowledge as study limitations the fact
that the results reflect short-term effects, that the
communities were small towns in rural counties located in one
state, and the populations were almost entirely white. ``Nevertheless, these results provide encouraging evidence
that efforts to limit commercial access to tobacco by youth
represent an effective component of a multidimensional approach
to reducing tobacco use,'' they conclude.'
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Entered by Phil Ward - Oct 26, 1998
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