WHO: Cigarette Company Like Mutated Virus

World No Tobacco Day

HealthNewsPoint.com, New York: Governments around the world should ban all forms of tobacco marketing, not only in the advertising billboards and television, because the tobacco companies finding new ways to penetrate the market, the statement said the World Health Organization (WHO).

Head of WHO's communicable diseases division, Douglas Bettcher, says tougher measures need to be taken to control tobacco use, which claimed six million lives a year.

"This is an industry that sells a product that kills more than half of its customers, but the industry is still able to attract a new generation of smokers despite a 2005 agreement on tobacco control."


"The majority of tobacco users started experiencing drug dependence before the age of 20 years," he said ahead of the World No Tobacco Day, as quoted from WHO.int, Friday (31/05/2013).

"Banning tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship is the best way to prevent young people from taking up smoking and reduce tobacco consumption in the entire population of the world," he added.

Prohibition on advertising the open is very important, but employers are very good at finding other ways that are less visible to attract potential smokers and ensure customers remain loyal.

"The tobacco companies as a mutated virus. When you ban one type of advertising, probably the most popular form of billboards, television, radio, they moved to the other way," he said.

He was referring to the tactics including selling branded products such as apparel, selling products through a reality TV show, using social media to form a community of consumers as well as sponsoring an event.

"That is why the ban should be complete so that it can be effective," he said.

According to Bettcher, to 2011 as many as 19 states have done and witnessed a total ban on cigarette consumption decreased by seven percent, while one-third of the countries in the world to ban the new minimum or no ban at the latest. Data will be launched in July.

With tighter restrictions in developed countries, tobacco companies have moved up demand in African markets.

Bettcher warned of the dangers to be faced by the continent, given the health services in the region are less able to overcome the consequences of smoking compared to developed countries.

He praised Australia cigarette packs related rules applicable from December, which requires tobacco products sold in green boxes with graphic images of smokers that tobacco caused disease.

New Zealand and Ireland has announced plans to follow suit, in addition to the challenges for Australia in forum World Trade Organization (WTO) by cigar manufacturers such as Cuba, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, plus Ukraine.

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600 Thousand Passive Smokers Die Every Year

World No Tobacco Day

HealthNewsPoint.com, London: Better late than not at all, this sentence may be appropriate for those who still choose to continue to smoke.
The worst risk is the exposure to secondhand smoke damage the lungs and other vital organs.

Passive smoking is just terrible impact, especially for active smokers.

The first global study shows secondhand smoke is estimated to cause 600,000 deaths annually around the world reported by the BBC, Friday (05/31/2013).

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) one third of passive smokers who have died are children who are often exposed to smoke at home.

Studies in November 2010 in 192 countries, concluded passive smoking is very harmful to children, high risk of sudden infant death syndrome, pneumonia and asthma.

Passive smoking has been linked to heart disease, respiratory disease and lung cancer.
"It helps us understand the real victims of tobacco," said Armando Peruga, of the WHO's Tobacco-Free Initiative, who led the study.

In Southeast Asia and Africa estimated 165,000 children die from respiratory infections due to haze.
"Mixed infectious diseases and secondhand smoke is a deadly combination," said Peruga.

Research conducted in 2004 found 40 percent of children, 33 percent of men and 35 percent of women into the class of second-hand smoke.

This caused 379,000 deaths from heart disease, 165,000 due to lower respiratory infections, 36,900 from asthma and 21,400 from lung cancer.

According to the study, the highest number of second-hand smoke are in Europe and Asia and the lowest levels were in the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean and Africa.

This research also revealed that passive smoking killed about 281 000 women around the world, caused 50 per cent in all parts of the world is a passive smoker.

However, the researchers say is the study's limitations, including uncertainty about the underlying health data and gaps in the data associated with secondhand smoke.

Writing in the journal Lancet, Dr Heather Wipfli of the University of Southern California and his colleague, saying "There is also acknowledged uncertainty in the estimates of disease burden. However, 1.2 billion smokers in the world exposing billions of non-smokers to become passive smokers, which cause disease
indoor air pollutants ".

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Alert, High Blood Pressure Can Lower Brain Function

High blood pressure, aka hypertension synonymous with heart disease. But a new study has revealed that hypertension, especially in the arteries that supply blood to the head and neck may be associated with cognitive decline, brain.

The research team from Australia said that people with high blood pressure in the artery or central veins, including the aorta and carotid arteries (the vessels that supply blood to the neck and head) has a test score lower visual processing, including slower thinking speed aka slow and
recognition ability (recognize something) worse.

"Usually the blood pressure measurements taken from brachial artery in the arm, but it turns out to observe the condition of the central artery may be a more sensitive way to assess a person's cognitive abilities. Central controls Because arterial blood flow to the brain directly," said researcher Matthew Pase of the Center for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University, Melbourne.

"So if we can estimate the blood pressure in the central artery, then we can predict cognitive function and cognitive decline that may occur in a person," he added.

In the study, Pase and his colleagues looked at which of the blood pressure measurements from the arm or from a central artery that has a strong connection with the person's cognitive abilities.

In this case the researchers recruited 493 participants aged 20-82 years from Australia.
Most researchers are Caucasians and non-smokers with no history of stroke or dementia.

Then participants were asked to perform a number of tasks to measure their cognitive abilities such as visual processing, memory, recognition ability (recognize something) and information processing speed.
Not forgetting the researchers also measured the participants' blood pressure both arms and a central artery.

As a result, high blood pressure in the brachial artery is associated with performance on tests of visual processing is worse. But high blood pressure in the central artery is associated with a poor performer on other cognitive tests, including visual processing, recognition and information processing speed.

"This shows that central blood pressure is a more sensitive predictor of aging-related cognitive," Pase node as reported by FoxNews, Friday (31/05/2013).

Pase suspect someone with age then tightened and the main arterial elasticity decreases, the brain receives more blood high pressure, which in turn can damage the brain's cognitive abilities.

The study will be published in the journal Psychological Science.

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