Therapist Unlimited Blog

Two new studies have found that the number of heart attacks has fallen by up to a third in countries where bans on smoking in public places have been introduced.
Smoking in pubs, restaurants and other public spaces was banned in England and Wales in July 2007, a year after similar laws were introduced in Scotland.
The Scottish ban led to a 14 per cent fall in the number of people being admitted to
hospital with a heart attack the following year.
Libby Dowling, Care Advisor at Diabetes UK, said: "Diabetes UK supports the smoking ban and we are pleased to hear that it may reduce the number of heart attacks by more than a third in countries where it is implemented.

Studies has recently shown that smoking ban is effective in keeping humans free from any form of heart disease.

Dowling revealed people with diabetes are at increased risk.
He said smoking is harmful to everyone’s health, and in particular to the 2.5 million people with diabetes in the UK.
He added people with the condition are already at increased risk of heart disease, stroke and other circulatory problems.
Moreover, Dowling said smoking doubles the risk of these problems.
Dowling encourage those people with diabetes to give up smoking to protect their health.

Smokers who wish to undergo a medical surgery needs to stop their smoking habits now.
This developed after a recent research has shown that people who start nicotine replacement therapy at least four weeks before surgery can halve their risk of poor wound healing.
Based on the study made by German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) they found out that quitting smoking in times of stress is not easy.
Professor Peter Sawicki, the Institute’s Director revealed quitting from smoke is not easy before operation but those who smoke re more likely to have complications after surgery than people who do not smoke.
At the moment, IQWiG has now analysed current research results that show that nicotine replacement therapy can help people quit smoking and avoid complications after surgery.

It is time to stop smoking to those smokers who wish to undergo surgery.

The researchers said nicotine replacement therapy helps reduce withdrawal symptoms when people stop smoking by giving them nicotine through a patch or chewing gum.
The researchers revealed trials showed that only 14 percent of the patients who smoked had problems with wound healing if they had nicotine replacement therapy at least four weeks before surgery, compared to 28 percent of the patients who did not have nicotine replacement therapy.
The research team added poor wound healing is one of the most common complications after surgery.
Moreover, Sawicki said lack of oxygen can cause poor wound healing.
Sawicki said anaesthetics and surgery put a strain on the body’s oxygen supply as it is.
He said smoking reduces the amount of oxygen that is available in the blood even more, making it more difficult for wounds to heal a process which requires oxygen.

Those people who are not smokers but are regularly inhaling second hand smoke better do something on their situation before things got get worse.
This developed after a recent research has shown that even second-hand tobacco smoke exposure can result in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a common disease and rising cause of chronic liver injury in which fat accumulates in the liver of people who drink little or no alcohol.
A team of researchers at the University of California, Riverside has found out that fat has accumulated in the liver cells of mice exposed to second-hand cigarette smoke for a year in the lab.
The researchers explained such fat buildup is a sign of NAFLD, leading eventually to liver dysfunction.
In their study, the researchers focused on two key regulators of lipid (fat) metabolism that are found in many human cells as well: SREBP (sterol regulatory element-binding protein) that stimulates synthesis of fatty acids in the liver, and AMPK (adenosine monophosphate kinase) that turns SREBP on and off.

People better avoid inhaling second hand smoke since it could lead to a liver disease.

The researchers revealed based on their study they discovered that second-hand smoke exposure inhibits AMPK activity, which, in turn, causes an increase in activity of SREBP.
The team said when SREBP is more active, more fatty acids get synthesized.
The team addded the result is NAFLD induced by second-hand smoke.
Manuela Martins-Green, a professor of cell biology, who led the study revealed their study provides compelling experimental evidence in support of tobacco smoke exposure playing a major role in NAFLD development.
Green added their work points to SREBP and AMPK as new molecular targets for drug therapy that can reverse NAFLD development resulting from second-hand smoke.
She said drugs could now be developed that stimulate AMPK activity, and thereby inhibit SREBP, leading to reduced fatty acid production in the liver.
The researchers revealed their study emphasizes that discouraging cigarette smoking helps prevent not only cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease and cancer, but now also liver disease.
Second-hand smoke is the combination of smoke exhaled by a smoker and smoke given off by the burning end of a tobacco product.
Lingering in the air long after tobacco products have been extinguished, it is involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers in the vicinity.
According to medical facts, second-hand smoke is a major toxicant that affects children, the elderly and nonsmokers living in the household of adults who smoke.
Many state and local governments have passed laws prohibiting smoking in public facilities.
Diseases associated with second-hand smoking include cancer, heart disease, atherosclerosis, pneumonia, bronchitis and severe asthma.
Despite the large body of scientific evidence documenting the effects of passive or active smoking on the heart and lungs, reports investigating how smoking causes liver injury are scant.

Although alcohol consumption is known to be associated with chronic pancreatitis, new evidence indicates that a threshold of five or more drinks per day is required to significantly raise risk; however, most patients with chronic pancreatitis do not drink this amount.
In addition, based on the study it was also discovered that smoking is an independent, dose-dependent risk factor.
"Chronic pancreatitis is an inflammatory syndrome of the pancreas characterized by progressive parenchymal fibrosis scarring of the organ, maldigestion, diabetes mellitus and pain," the researchers explained.
"Recurrent acute pancreatitis [acute pancreatitis that occurs on two or more occasions and may become chronic] and chronic pancreatitis are associated with alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking.
The etiology of recurrent acute pancreatitis and chronic pancreatitis is complex, and effects of alcohol and smoking may be limited to specific patient subsets."
Dhiraj Yadav, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues in the North American Pancreatic Study Group examined the current prevalence of alcohol use and smoking and their association with pancreatitis in patients evaluated at U.S. referral centers.
Between 2000 and 2006, 1,000 patients (540 with chronic pancreatitis and 460 with recurrent acute pancreatitis) were  enrolled in the North American Pancreatitis Study 2 (NAPS2), as were 695 healthy controls.
All participants (average age 49.7) reported their alcohol consumption and smoking habits.

About one-fourth of both controls and patients were lifetime abstainers. Among those with chronic pancreatitis, 38.4 percent of men and 11 percent of women were very heavy drinkers  (five or more drinks per day), compared with 16.9 percent of men and 5.5 percent of women with recurrent acute pancreatitis and 10 percent of men and 3.6 percent of women in the control group.
"We found the threshold drinking amount for association between alcohol use and chronic pancreatitis to be five or more drinks per day," the authors write. Compared with abstaining and light drinking (half a drink per day or less), very heavy drinking was associated with approximately triple the odds of developing chronic pancreatitis. However, fewer patients with chronic pancreatitis  than expected (about one-fourth) drank at this level. Other factors, including genetic mutations, also contribute to pancreatitis risk.
Although many heavy drinkers also smoked, cigarette use was an independent risk factor for both chronic pancreatitis and recurrent acute pancreatitis. Among smokers, those with chronic pancreatitis tended to smoke more (26.6 pack-years, vs. 19.5 pack-years for those with recurrent acute pancreatitis and 16.2 pack-years for controls; one pack-year is about 7,300 cigarettes  smoked) and had smoked for a longer period of time (a median or midpoint of 30.5 years, vs. 21.9 years for controls and 22.7 years for those with recurrent acute pancreatitis), suggesting a dose-dependent effect.
"In conclusion, only very heavy alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking are independent risk factors for chronic pancreatitis," the authors write. "Risk for chronic pancreatitis from alcohol consumption occurs above a threshold level, while risk due to smoking is dose dependent. Drinking levels in subjects with recurrent acute pancreatitis are similar to controls.
Only a minority of patients with recurrent acute pancreatitis and chronic pancreatitis currently seen at secondary or tertiary U.S. centers could be categorized as very heavy drinkers."

According to a latest medical study middle aged people who smoke, have high blood pressure or diabetes are far more likely to develop dementia in later life.
With the result, researchers hoped that people could modify their lifestyle in mid-life to avoid developing dementia.
Based on medical facts, dementia is a growing public health problem affecting older people in developed countries.
It is perceived that one in six people older than 70 have dementia.
Based on this number it is expected that the number of people with dementia will grow threefold by 2050, compared with 2000.
Earlier research have shown that the presence of cardiovascular risk factors including high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and smoking increase the risk of developing subsequent dementia, but have often failed to show the relationship.
Researchers from the universities of Minnesota, North Carolina and John Hopkins and the University of Mississippi Medical Center studied more than 11,000 people aged 46-70 who were participants in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study in 1990-92.
In their study, people underwent a physical examination and cognitive testing at that time and they were followed up until 2004 to see how many were hospitalized with dementia.

Middle age people should live a healthy lifestyle to avoid suffering from dementia later in their adult life.

After following their progress, the researchers identified 203 cases of hospitalization with dementia.
Smoking, high blood pressure and diabetes were all strongly associated with dementia in white participants and African-Americans.
The results showed that rates of hospitalization with dementia increased exponentially with age in men and women and in different ethnic backgrounds.
Overall, African-Americans had a two and a half times higher rate of hospitalization than white people and African-American women in particular had the highest rates of all.
Current smokers were 70% more likely than those who had never smoked to develop dementia, people with high blood pressure were 60% more likely than those without high blood pressure, and people with diabetes were more than twice as likely than those without diabetes to develop it.
No association was found between people who were obese/overweight and dementia in later life.
The researchers explained the results suggest that smoking cessation and prevention or control of high blood pressure and diabetes starting in midlife may have the added benefit of decreasing dementia hospitalization risk.
The researchers added the results emphasize the importance of healthy lifestyle modification and risk factor treatment to prevent dementia.

Parents around the world should strive hard to keep their children away from smoking cigarettes since tobacco can lead to life-threatening diseases and premature death.
In a recent data gathered by the Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey (SALSUS) it was discovered that although it is illegal to sell cigarettes to children under the age of 18, 42% of 13 year old regular smokers and 57% of 15 year old regular smokers are reportedly buying cigarettes from a shop, while 13% of 13 year old regular smokers and 10% of 15 year old regular smokers buy their tobacco from a vending machine.
With the alarming result of their research a group of doctors in Scotland wants to see a robust approach to tobacco control in order to reduce the number of teens who smoke.
Dr. Peter Terry, Chairman of physicians group in Scotland explained it is essential that cigarettes are made less accessible to children.

Medical experts revealed children hooked on smoking cigarettes can suffer death if their addiction could not be stopped.

Terry said banning point of sale displays and getting rid of tobacco vending machines will go some way to doing this.
He said smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease and respiratory problems.
He added smoking also ages skin, makes your breath smell and stains fingers yellow.
Moreover, Terry said every day doctors witness the death and despair caused by smoking.
Terry said there is a need to break the tobacco trap.
Terry added young smokers will become tomorrow’s parents who smoke and they will continue the cycle of smoking-related ill health.

A recent study from the medical experts has revealed that those smokers who quit their habit without proper planning are most likely to fail in their quest to stop cigarette addiction.
Based on the data, gathered by researchers it was discovered that  almost 40 percent of subjects reported that their most recent quit attempt started without any advance planning, suggesting that for some smokers, setting an advance quit date may not be as necessary as once thought.
The researchers revealed while a period of planning prior to quitting has long been thought to allow smokers time to prepare themselves for their quit attempt, the study explores the various reasons as well as demographic and psychographic data, which may contribute, to a smoker deciding to quit spontaneously.

To gain success, smokers should carefully plan their action or they would end up a failure in their quest.

Dr. Saul Shiffman, professor in the departments of psychology and pharmaceutical science at the University of Pittsburgh and study co-author, explained, the study examines the possibility that while quit attempts may seem like spontaneous efforts on the surface, they may actually be the result of prolonged subconscious dissatisfaction with or concern about one’s smoking.
Shiffman added the results do not discredit planning a quit attempt, however, a smoker needs to determine what may be the best approach to ensure long-term cessation.
Furthermore, Shiffman said all smokers should consider ways to manage tough situations such as cravings and withdrawal symptoms to ensure long-term success.

It was proven through a study that the nicotine in cigarettes can calm a person down.

According to a recent research, it was proven that cigarette had a chemical element that can calm any person puffing it.
Based on the study conducted by the University of California, they found out that nicotine might alter the activity of brain areas that are involved in the inhibition of negative emotions such as anger thus it calms a person down.
Jean Gehricke, the lead researcher of the study explained nicotine slows down the anger of any person as shown by their study.
Gehricke said participants who showed nicotine-induced changes in anger task performance also showed changes in brain metabolism.
He added nicotine-induced reductions in length of retaliation were associated with changes in brain metabolism in response to nicotine in brain areas responsible for orienting, planning and processing of emotional stimuli.
Despite this finding, it is still advisable to avoid smoking since over-all smoking is bad for the health.
The cigarette might have calming effects but the truth of the matter it could cause cancer and other health problems to persons addicted to smoking.

What is Marijuana and how is it used?

Marijuana is part of a group of drugs known as hallucinogenic drugs. That is, they can cause the drug abuser to hallucinate when they are using it. It has a dried herb like appearance, and is usually smoked, often mixed with other herbs or tobacco. Marijuana is produced from the leaves of the cannabis plant. Other names for Marijuana include ‘weed’, ‘dope’, ‘blow’, and ’smoke’. The effects of the drug Marijuana. People who abuse the drug Marijuana will often say that they feel ‘chilled out’ and that it relaxes them. They may become more talkative, although they will often not make any sense. Time will often slow down for the Marijuana drug abuser, and it is not unusual for them to experience intense hunger; this is known as the munchies. The drug Marijuana is often thought by people who are less informed to be relatively harmful, or something that the user will grow out of using. However, Marijuana does carry harmful side effects, so it is wise to test anyone that you think may be using and abusing this drug. Drug testing can be easily carried out by using a drug test kit. Using a drug test kit to test for Marijuana is important because of the harmful effects this drug can have on the user. These include the user developing a psychological dependency on the drug. They may also show signs of paranoia and anxiety when they are not taking the drug. There has been links of Marijuana with schizophrenia. Drug testing for this substance using a drug testing kit is also important because the most common way to smoke Marijuana is to mix it with tobacco which also carried health risks that can lead to cancer. Increased use of the drug Marijuana can lead to a slowing down of the brain functions and make it difficult for the user to learn. If you know of a teenager showing these signs, then it is important that you use a drug testing kit to determine the facts.

What is PCP and how is it used?

PCP is the abbreviation for the drug known as phencyclidine. Another more common street name for this drug is ‘angel dust.’ PCP was developed during the 1950’s as an anesthetic that could be used in the treatment of mild to moderate pain and also to treat aching limbs. Production of PCP stopped during the 1960’s when patients were beginning to show significant unwelcome side effects from taking the drug. PCP began hitting the streets as a drug that was open to abuse around 1967. It is usually taken by smoking it, often mixing it with herbs such as mint or parsley. It is also sometimes smoked by mixing it with tobacco and marijuana. The effects of the drug PCP. The drug PCP has been known to reduce the feeling of pain. It can also cause feelings of being ‘out of it’ and confusion. Drug testing for PCP is easy and reliable. Urine drug testing kits are available that are easy to use. Drug testing for PCP is important because of the side effects of this drug. These include the person abusing PCP becoming confused and agitated, and often depressed as the drug depresses their brain. PCP increases the abusers heart rate and raises blood pressure. Chronic abuse of the drug PC has led to kidney damage, muscle damage and even brain damage. Another harmful effect of the drug PCP is that the person will feel no or reduced pain. This can often lead to abusers seriously injuring themselves. Some drug abusers have been reported as becoming agitated and violent and getting into fights. Because they do not feel pain, they will fight for longer which may result in serious injuries for themselves and others. Drug testing kits for PCP and other drugs are easily available and give reliable results.