Category: Berita

A middle-aged cigarette smoker who has smoked for decades is two to three times more likely to die early than someone similar who has never smoked. Tobacco smoking is well known to be a major risk factor for various cancers, lung and cardiovascular problems, and is also linked to other health problems, such as complications in pregnancy, low sperm count in men, oral problems, and increased likelihood of cataracts.

Little wonder then that the World Health Organisation (WHO) sees tobacco smoking as the number one avoidable cause of death in the world. US statistics reveal that smoking causes more deaths each year than HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol misuse, motor vehicle injuries and homicides combined. Similar comparisons can be found in UK statistics.

However, while there can be few today who are unaware of the toll smoking takes on the body, the effects of long-term tobacco smoking on other areas such as learning and memory are less well known.

Although some studies have shown that the nicotine in cigarettes can improve concentration and attention (making smokers feel more alert), there’s more to cigarettes than just nicotine. They contain over 4,000 chemicals – over 50 of which are known to be toxic in nature: the carbon monoxide also found in car exhaust fumes, butane found in lighter fluid, and arsenic, ammonia, and methanol found in rocket fuel, for example.

What’s in your cigarette?

• Nicotene: Insecticide
• Butane: Lighter fluid
• Methanol: Rocket fuel
• Arsenic: Poison
• Methane: Sewer gas
• Acetic acid: Vinegar
• Carbon monoxide
• Ammonia: Toilet cleaner
• Cadmium: Batteries
• Hexamine: Barbecue lighter
• Stearic acid: Candle wax
• Toluene: Industrial solvent
• Paint

It’s thought that a long-term build-up of these toxic chemicals can damage the brain, leading to deficits in learning and memory. Long-term smoking has been linked with reductions in working memory, prospective memory – that used for everyday tasks such as keeping an appointment or taking medication on time – and executive function, which helps us plan tasks, pay attention to current activities, and ignore distractions. These three underpin our everyday ability to remember and learn, without which independent living would be much more difficult.

In the first study of its kind, our team of researchers from Northumbria University reported in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry our findings that those who smoke and drink heavily show greater deficits in their everyday prospective memory. More so, in fact, than those who smoke but do not drink heavily and those who drink heavily but do not smoke combined. This suggests there’s a “double whammy” effect to combining smoking and drinking.

Recent studies of smoking-related health problems and memory deficits has included the effects of “second-hand” or “passive” smoking, where non-smokers inhale tobacco smoke from smokers. Research here has found the same range of health-related problems linked to passive smoking as found in smokers, including lung and cardiovascular disease and cognitive and memory problems. These could affect a passive smoker in a number of spheres of life, not just health but educational and occupational, given the universal requirement and use for everyday remembering.

Quitting smoking improves health and leads to improvements in cognition. This may be linked to an increase in the thickness of the brain’s cortex – the outer layer of the brain which plays a critical role in information processing and memory. The cortex naturally thins with age, but smoking can worsen this effect causing the cortex to thin at an accelerated rate.

Stopping smoking can help partially to reverse this effect on the cortex, but not to the levels found in a non-smoker. Traditional methods of quitting smoking have focused on nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), such as nicotine chewing gum, patches, inhalators and nasal sprays. This typically takes around eight to 12 weeks before producing demonstrable health improvements.

An increasingly popular form of NRT is the e-cigarette: a battery-powered electronic nicotine delivery device resembling a cigarette that does not contain tobacco. The use of e-cigarettes over smoking tobacco recently has been found to improve everyday prospective memory (memory for future activities), but we presently know little about what long-term impact e-cigarettes may have upon health, mood and cognitive functions.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/

 

A middle-aged cigarette smoker who has smoked for decades is two to three times more likely to die early than someone similar who has never smoked. Tobacco smoking is well known to be a major risk factor for various cancers, lung and cardiovascular problems, and is also linked to other health problems, such as complications in pregnancy, low sperm count in men, oral problems, and increased likelihood of cataracts.

Little wonder then that the World Health Organisation (WHO) sees tobacco smoking as the number one avoidable cause of death in the world. US statistics reveal that smoking causes more deaths each year than HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol misuse, motor vehicle injuries and homicides combined. Similar comparisons can be found in UK statistics.

However, while there can be few today who are unaware of the toll smoking takes on the body, the effects of long-term tobacco smoking on other areas such as learning and memory are less well known.

Although some studies have shown that the nicotine in cigarettes can improve concentration and attention (making smokers feel more alert), there’s more to cigarettes than just nicotine. They contain over 4,000 chemicals – over 50 of which are known to be toxic in nature: the carbon monoxide also found in car exhaust fumes, butane found in lighter fluid, and arsenic, ammonia, and methanol found in rocket fuel, for example.

It’s thought that a long-term build-up of these toxic chemicals can damage the brain, leading to deficits in learning and memory. Long-term smoking has been linked with reductions in working memory, prospective memory – that used for everyday tasks such as keeping an appointment or taking medication on time – and executive function, which helps us plan tasks, pay attention to current activities, and ignore distractions. These three underpin our everyday ability to remember and learn, without which independent living would be much more difficult.

In the first study of its kind, our team of researchers from Northumbria University reported in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry our findings that those who smoke and drink heavily show greater deficits in their everyday prospective memory. More so, in fact, than those who smoke but do not drink heavily and those who drink heavily but do not smoke combined. This suggests there’s a “double whammy” effect to combining smoking and drinking.

Recent studies of smoking-related health problems and memory deficits has included the effects of “second-hand” or “passive” smoking, where non-smokers inhale tobacco smoke from smokers. Research here has found the same range of health-related problems linked to passive smoking as found in smokers, including lung and cardiovascular disease and cognitive and memory problems. These could affect a passive smoker in a number of spheres of life, not just health but educational and occupational, given the universal requirement and use for everyday remembering.

Quitting smoking improves health and leads to improvements in cognition. This may be linked to an increase in the thickness of the brain’s cortex – the outer layer of the brain which plays a critical role in information processing and memory. The cortex naturally thins with age, but smoking can worsen this effect causing the cortex to thin at an accelerated rate.

Stopping smoking can help partially to reverse this effect on the cortex, but not to the levels found in a non-smoker. Traditional methods of quitting smoking have focused on nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), such as nicotine chewing gum, patches, inhalators and nasal sprays. This typically takes around eight to 12 weeks before producing demonstrable health improvements.

An increasingly popular form of NRT is the e-cigarette: a battery-powered electronic nicotine delivery device resembling a cigarette that does not contain tobacco. The use of e-cigarettes over smoking tobacco recently has been found to improve everyday prospective memory (memory for future activities), but we presently know little about what long-term impact e-cigarettes may have upon health, mood and cognitive functions.

http://theconversation.com/

 

In an official agency advisory, the World Health Organization said on Friday, Nov. 18, that Zika virus, which is believed to have caused the rise in microcephaly and other notable defects in infants in Brazil, is no longer a global health emergency.

Although emphasizing that the crisis is not yet over, the WHO says it will not identify Zika virus an emergency, or a Health Emergency of International Concern, but rather as an ongoing threat like other known mosquito-related illness, such as malaria or yellow fever.

In an article by the New York Times, Dr. Peter Salama, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program said, “We are not downgrading the importance of Zika. We are sending the message that Zika is here to stay and the WHO response is here to stay.”

On other hand, experts pursuing the birth defect-causing pandemic expressed dismay and concern that the WHO’s declaration might impede the support from international organizations and mislead people living in at-risk environments that they are no longer in danger.

According to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, immunologist and director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is funding efforts to find a Zika vaccine, WHO’s emergency lift is rather premature and untimely as summer is only about to start in the Southern hemisphere, which indicates a possibility of resurgence of Zika virus cases in countries like Brazil and Colombia. For his part, Dr. Fauci says his agency would continue its vaccine efforts for the Zika virus despite WHO’s statement.

In February, WHO declared a state of emergency for Zika virus following the spread of the infection across almost every country in the Western Hemisphere, save for Canada. Babies by the thousands suffered physical deformities due to the infection.

Last September, President Barack Obama approved a $1.1 billion for the fight against Zika virus, $400 million of which dedicated solely to the development of a vaccine and diagnostic tests.

http://www.natureworldnews.com/

 

The World Health Organization has warned that a global influenza pandemic remains a real threat despite progress made over the past 10 years in increasing the worldwide supply of flu vaccines.

In 2006, the World Health Organization acknowledged that countries around the world were ill-prepared to tackle an influenza pandemic. At the time, there were concerns about an H5N1 bird flu pandemic spreading globally.

In response, the WHO launched the Global Action Plan (GAP) for influenza vaccines with three main objectives. It aimed to increase evidence-based seasonal vaccine use; increase vaccine production as a protection against pandemics and improve regulatory capacity in developing countries; and promote research and development for better vaccines.

That initiative has now ended, but Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO assistant-director general for health systems and innovation, observed that global preparation for an influenza pandemic had vastly improved over the past decade.

“We are certainly better prepared for an influenza pandemic than we were 10 years ago,” Kieny said, “but,we must not lose the momentum and we are still facing the threat of an influenza pandemic in 2016.”

More vaccine production

The WHO said global production capacity for pandemic vaccines increased from an estimated 1.5 billion doses in 2006 to 6.2 billion last year. While it’s an impressive achievement, Kieny said, it “still falls short of the GAP goal to immunize 70 percent of the population with two doses of vaccine, potentially for which we would need 10 billion doses.”

She noted that only rich countries were producing vaccines in 2006, whereas today, 14 mostly upper-middle-income countries were making strides toward manufacturing their own vaccines.

In addition, she said, the number of countries that have national influenza immunization policies in place has increased from 74 to 115 today, “including lower-middle-income countries and one low-income country.”

William Ampofo, a professor at the University of Ghana and an advisory group member of the GAP, said he was encouraged by the progress made, but he told VOA he was disappointed that the creation of the GAP had not resulted in increased vaccine production capacity in Africa.

“As part of the GAP, technology transfer was provided for developing countries, and South Africa and Egypt were part of this initiative,” he said. “Unfortunately, the tech transfer has not resulted in influenza vaccine production capacity as of now.”

He added, however, that the Ebola epidemic in West Africa had shown that vaccination is an effective tool against a dangerous virus and that the manufacture of a flu vaccine on the continent should be seriously considered.

“Because of what happened with Ebola, now the countries — in West Africa, especially — the ministers of health are now giving attention to vaccine production capacity on the African continent,” he said. “They recognize, however, that it is very difficult, but they feel that something must be started.”

Flu season

The flu season in the Northern Hemisphere is set to start in December, peak in late January or early February and run its course by April or May. The WHO estimates every year there are between 3 million and 5 million forensic cases of influenza, resulting in 150,000 to 500,000 deaths.

A large variety of viruses or subtype influenza viruses are circulating in wild and domestic birds. Only three viruses currently are circulating in humans: influenza A (H1N1), an influenza A variant (H3N2) and an influenza B virus. Traditional flu vaccines, called “trivalent” vaccines, are made to protect against those three flu viruses.

Wenqing Zhang, a scientist in WHO’s Department of Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases, said the influenza viruses are constantly changing. She said one type of change, “antigenic drift,” results in small changes in the genes of influenza viruses. A second way, “antigenic shift,” involves an abrupt, major change.

“With the antigenic drift, it will cause an epidemic, and if there is an antigenic shift, then there will be a pandemic,” she said. “Because the virus is constantly evolving, the threat of influenza pandemic is real. It is very real. It could be tomorrow or in five years’ time. It could be mild like the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, or it could be a very severe one, like in 1918.”

During the 1920s, scientists estimated that 21.5 million people had died as a result of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. More recent estimates have put the death toll at between 50 million and 100 million.

http://www.voanews.com/