@HealthMed A report in the latest British Medical Journal by Chan and his team from the Gastro-enterology Department at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA, suggests a small but potentially important higher risk of hip fracture in current or ex-smokers among post-menopausal women on treatment with the commonly used anti-ulcer drugs - proton pump inhibitors. The risk was small - one extra hip fracture per year for every 2000 women treated -but the risk was greater, the longer the treatment with a PPI.
The link is biologically plausible as both PPIs and smoking have actions on the body which could increase the risk of hip fracture. The authors were careful to state that the risk did not apply to non-smokers and for those at risk they were unable to attribute this to any specific type of PPI. Of note, there are several reasons why smokers are more at risk of causes of indigestion/dyspepsia which may make them more likely than non-smokers to be on PPI treatment.
This report is another example illustrating that drug choice and duration should be based on balancing clinical benefit against potential risk of adverse drug effects.
This was an older study among nurses in the US from data collected from 2000 up to 2008.
A weakness of the study is that it was not a randomised controlled trial. The report was based on following a cohort of people some of whom happened to be on PPI treatment : that means that the findings may be subject to bias ie there may be reasons unrelated to the PPIs to explain the hip fracture risk, although the authors made clear efforts to control for obvious sources of bias.
Patients who are concerned should consult their GP or pharmacist for advice.
See source reference
Khalili H, Huang ES, Jacobson BC, et al. Use of proton pump inhibitors and risk of hip fracture in relation to dietary and lifestyle factors: a prospective cohort study. British Medical Journal. Published online January 31 2012
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Saturday, 28 January 2012
Call for papers for 2012 International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine and Hippocrates Awards
The programme includes contributors from the UK, USA, Denmark, Greece, Cyprus and France. There are sessions on historical and contemporary themes, illness and poetry, poetry as therapy, poetry in the education of medical students, nurses and doctors, and poetry as an aid to health professionals. The provisional programme of lectures, round table discussions, poetry readings and the Hippocrates Awards Ceremony is now published on the Symposium website.
Poster abstract submission remains open - deadline 31st March 2012.
The Hippocrates initiative was named winner of the Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts in the 2011 Times Higher Education awards, announced on 24th November 2011 in London. This award aims to recognise the collaborative and interdisciplinary work that is taking place in universities to promote the arts.
Entries are now closed for the 2012 Hippocrates Prize for poetry and medicine, which is for unpublished poems in English.
The Hippocrates poetry and medicine initiative was co-founded by a team from University of Warwick, and has been supported by several external organizations interested in medicine and the arts, including the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine, the Wellcome Trust, the Cardiovascular Research Trust and Heads, Teachers and Industry.
In its first 3 years, the Hippocrates Prize has attracted over 4000 entries from 45 countries, from the Americas to Fiji and Finland to Australasia.
BBC broadcaster and journalist Martha Kearney has joined New York poet and critic Marilyn Hacker and medical scientist Professor Rod Flower FRS to complete the judging panel for the 2012 Hippocrates Awards for Poetry and Medicine.
For more on the 2012 Hippocrates Awards and the Hippocrates initiative see my recent update.
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
New deadline midnight GMT 3rd February for 2012 Hippocrates entries
Entries are now closed for the 2012 Hippocrates poetry & medicine awards for which there is a £5000
1st prize in each of 2 categories: an Open International Prize and UK
NHS-related Prize for an unpublished poem of up to 50 lines written in English. Judging is anonymous.
For the 2012 awards there have been entries from 5 continents, from 32 countries from Argentina to Australia, Brazil to Burma, Italy to India, South Africa to Switzerland, Ghana to Germany, France and Switzerland, and with poems submitted from 36 US states, 5 Indian states, 5 Canadian provinces, and from throughout the UK.
Hippocrates Prize winners will be announced by the judges, Marilyn Hacker, Martha Kearney and Professor Rod Flower, FRS, at the Awards Symposium in London, Sat 12th May at the end of our 3rd International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine.
A downloadable poster about the 12th May International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine is available.
There is more information about the Hippocrates Initiative in earlier postings on this blog.
For the 2012 awards there have been entries from 5 continents, from 32 countries from Argentina to Australia, Brazil to Burma, Italy to India, South Africa to Switzerland, Ghana to Germany, France and Switzerland, and with poems submitted from 36 US states, 5 Indian states, 5 Canadian provinces, and from throughout the UK.
Hippocrates Prize winners will be announced by the judges, Marilyn Hacker, Martha Kearney and Professor Rod Flower, FRS, at the Awards Symposium in London, Sat 12th May at the end of our 3rd International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine.
A downloadable poster about the 12th May International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine is available.
There is more information about the Hippocrates Initiative in earlier postings on this blog.
The Hippocrates initiative
received a 2011
Times Higher Education Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts.
For further information, see
the Hippocrates initiative website
or email the organisers.
Monday, 23 January 2012
Smoking advice in literature
 |
| F Scott Fitzgerald |
Further examples welcome of earlier literary offers of advice on risks of smoking, heeded or ignored?
See related previous blog on: Stopping smoking - why and how?
Friday, 13 January 2012
FPM to launch a new journal on Health Policy and Technology
The FPM continues to publish its first international publication, the Postgraduate Medical Journal, launched in 1925. HPT provides a further excellent way for the
FPM to continue to make important national and international contributions to development
of policy and practice within medicine and related disciplines. The aim of the
FPM in establishing this new international journal is to publish relevant, timely and accessible articles
and commentaries to support policy-makers, health professionals, health
technology providers, patient groups and academia interested in health policy and technology.
Topics
covered by HPT will include
- Health technology, including drug discovery, diagnostics, medicines, devices, therapeutic delivery and eHealth systems
- Cross-national comparisons on health policy using evidence-based approaches
- National studies on health policy to determine the outcomes of technology-driven initiatives
- Cross-border eHealth including health tourism
- The digital divide in mobility, access and affordability of healthcare
- Health technology assessment (HTA) methods and tools for evaluating the effectiveness of clinical and non-clinical health technologies
- Health and eHealth indicators and benchmarks (measure/metrics) for understanding the adoption and diffusion of health technologies
- Health and eHealth models and frameworks to support policy-makers and other stakeholders in decision-making
- Stakeholder engagement with health technologies (clinical and patient/citizen buy-in)
- Regulation and health economics
- Health technology, including drug discovery, diagnostics, medicines, devices, therapeutic delivery and eHealth systems
- Cross-national comparisons on health policy using evidence-based approaches
- National studies on health policy to determine the outcomes of technology-driven initiatives
- Cross-border eHealth including health tourism
- The digital divide in mobility, access and affordability of healthcare
- Health technology assessment (HTA) methods and tools for evaluating the effectiveness of clinical and non-clinical health technologies
- Health and eHealth indicators and benchmarks (measure/metrics) for understanding the adoption and diffusion of health technologies
- Health and eHealth models and frameworks to support policy-makers and other stakeholders in decision-making
- Stakeholder engagement with health technologies (clinical and patient/citizen buy-in)
- Regulation and health economics
Professor Wendy Currie will lead
the journal as its founding Editor-in-Chief. Her research, consultancy and publications focus on
policy-making for large-scale information and communications technology (ICT)
projects in health, financial services and government.
The first issue of Health Policy and
Technology will focus on Electronic Health Records in the 21st Century, with papers
discussing implementation targets for EHRs in healthcare
organizations, cross-border policies for EHRs, financial and non-financial
costs of introducing EHRs, clinical and patient engagement with EHRs, government
policy for EHRs and country comparisons, security and governance practices in
relation to EHRs, and the role of EHRs in campaigns to improve citizens' health
and reduce health inequalities.
The first issue also includes a paper on the pioneering
new Centre for Health Technology Assessment of Devices and Diagnostics within
the UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). There is
also the first of a series of interviews with international leaders in the
field of health policy and technology, beginning with Sir Michael Rawlins,
Chairman of NICE.
The
aim of the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine (FPM) is to promote international
calibre excellence in postgraduate medical education through its publications,
clinical and scientific meetings, and other activities. The FPM is a British medical charity
that was founded at the end of World War I, when it pioneered development of
post-graduate educational programmes in all branches of medicine.
Its
foundation was the result of a merger between the Fellowship of Medicine and
the Postgraduate Medical Association, with Sir William Osler the first president
of the new organisation. The FPM is supported by Fellows with expertise in the
practice of medicine, medical education and publishing, and research in medicine
and related disciplines.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Commended 2011 Hippocrates entry published in Br J Psychiatry
Entries
are closed for the 2012 Hippocrates Awards. With
a 1st prize of £5000 for the Open International category and a separate 1st prize of £5000 for the UK National Health Service-related category, this is one of the best funded awards anywhere in the
world for a single poem.
Judges for the 2012 Hippocrates Awards are New York
poet and critic Marilyn
Hacker, medical scientist Professor Rod Flower FRS and BBC broadcaster and journalist Martha
Kearney.
Awards will be presented in London on Saturday
May 12th 2012, at the 3rd
International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine, to be held at the Wellcome Collection rooms in
London.
During the 2012 Symposium, there will be readings by Jo
Shapcott, Past-President
of the Poetry Society, and US poet and 2012 Hippocrates awards judge, Marilyn Hacker.
Monday, 2 January 2012
From eternal fires to venom and personalised medicine
@HealthMed Why should picnics, 'show and tell', and morning break be memorable for a small boy in the Middle East? The road for weekend family visits to the river Zab passed near rocky slopes, above which a heat haze marked scattered low flames. The existence of eternal fires was noted by Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC. A matter-of-fact article in the Pittsburgh Press, 14th May 1965, refers to these as 'seepage of natural gas in the Kirkuk oil field', part of the lands once ruled by Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire from ca. 605 BC – 562 BC. The Kirkuk area is now part of northern Iraq. These 'eternal fires', due to natural gas escaping from the rocks, give a possible explanation for the biblical reference to Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being put to the den of fire. An obvious reason to survive the fires would be, at the right time, heavy rain temporarily extinguishing the flames. Other sites where self-igniting natural gas leaks occur include Central Java.
Primary school play was subject to interruption by sandstorms, and on one occasion spent indoors to avoid a plague of locusts, so dense as to make breathing difficult. Knowing then of locusts from stories of the plagues of Egypt, my memory is of surprise that hedge and tree leaves were largely uneaten. And 'show and tell' was made the more exotic because a friend's father had ready access to formalin - his son regularly bringing in a preserved scorpion or multi-coloured snake. Both may use in their venom sarafatoxin, a primitive form of endothelin, to immobilise pray through causing angina, due to severe coronary artery spasm. This knowledge about toxins arose from the discovery of endothelin by Yanagisawa, reported in 1988
The ancient town of Arapha, near the modern Kirkuk area oil field discovered in 1927, was an important centre in the time of the Babylonian King Hammurabi (fl. 1792 BC to 1750 BC), who provided the early legal Hammurabi Code, including rules for good medical practice, dating back to around 1772 BC. A historical connection to an early example of guidelines for 'personalising medicine'.
-->
Primary school play was subject to interruption by sandstorms, and on one occasion spent indoors to avoid a plague of locusts, so dense as to make breathing difficult. Knowing then of locusts from stories of the plagues of Egypt, my memory is of surprise that hedge and tree leaves were largely uneaten. And 'show and tell' was made the more exotic because a friend's father had ready access to formalin - his son regularly bringing in a preserved scorpion or multi-coloured snake. Both may use in their venom sarafatoxin, a primitive form of endothelin, to immobilise pray through causing angina, due to severe coronary artery spasm. This knowledge about toxins arose from the discovery of endothelin by Yanagisawa, reported in 1988
The ancient town of Arapha, near the modern Kirkuk area oil field discovered in 1927, was an important centre in the time of the Babylonian King Hammurabi (fl. 1792 BC to 1750 BC), who provided the early legal Hammurabi Code, including rules for good medical practice, dating back to around 1772 BC. A historical connection to an early example of guidelines for 'personalising medicine'.
-->
©
DRJ Singer
Friday, 30 December 2011
A good time to get weight in trim
New Year is a familiar time for people to make resolutions and aims to improve lifestyle.
Why bother about overweight?
Excess weight increases the burden of cardiovascular risk (high blood pressure, raised cholesterol and diabetes mellitus); causes premature ageing of arteries, leading to heart attacks, strokes and other serious disorders of the heart, brain and circulation; contributes to risk of sleep dusturbance and sleep apnoea syndrome; causes premature joint ageing with arthritis; non-alcholic fatty liver disease is the commonest cause worldwide of liver damage; and increased risk of cancers - weight gain and overweight estimated to be linked to 1 in 5 cancers.
People who have no difficulty in maintaining normal weight may find it difficult to understand the challenges. For those who are currently overweight, the challenges in regaining a more healthy weight include beating the psychological, physical and social addiction to causes of overweight, and resisting peer pressure.
Getting started
Importants steps on the path to reducing excess weight include being ready to think about action, to think about taking action and to prepare to take action. That might mean telling friends and family you are serious about losing weight, and to seek whatever help may work - e.g. family doctor or nurse or other health professional, and support groups for the overweight.
What works?
Smaller portion size, cutting down on processed foods and increasing exercise are the big 3 factors that help. Keep a weight chart and if possible find a friend with whom to lose overweight. Wear a belt. Pace your eating and drink water with your food. Eat regular small meals. Avoid snacking, Research evidence suggests that successful measures include recording weight regularly, knowing the approximate energy intake of what you eat, and regular activity.
It is also clear that insight into the personal health risks of overweight provide extra incentive to lose weight. Better of course to reduce excess weight before serious clinical effects of overweight occur.
There are many support groups and diet plans available to order, often at high cost.
Research evidence suggests that success in maintaining weight loss is associated with clear strategies for coping with life stresses and with 'continued adherence to diet and exercise strategies, low levels of depression and disinhibition, and medical triggers for weight loss'. In contrast, unsuccessful weight maintainers are erratic or inconsistent in recording their weight and being vigilant in keeping to healthy types and amounts of food and in continuing regular activity.
Once overweight people have maintained a weight loss for 2-5 years, the chances of longer-term success in maintaining a healthy weight are much greater.
Apps
There an increasing variety of 'apps' for smartphones and PCs, that reinforce the combined impact of healthier dietary intake and maximising exercise. Many are free, with myfitnesspal an excellent example. These and other free lifestyle apps are like your personal health bank. The more active you are, the more energy balance you have towards losing weight, the more you eat, the less reserves in your health bank.
© DRJ Singer
@HealthMed
Why bother about overweight?
Excess weight increases the burden of cardiovascular risk (high blood pressure, raised cholesterol and diabetes mellitus); causes premature ageing of arteries, leading to heart attacks, strokes and other serious disorders of the heart, brain and circulation; contributes to risk of sleep dusturbance and sleep apnoea syndrome; causes premature joint ageing with arthritis; non-alcholic fatty liver disease is the commonest cause worldwide of liver damage; and increased risk of cancers - weight gain and overweight estimated to be linked to 1 in 5 cancers.
People who have no difficulty in maintaining normal weight may find it difficult to understand the challenges. For those who are currently overweight, the challenges in regaining a more healthy weight include beating the psychological, physical and social addiction to causes of overweight, and resisting peer pressure.
Getting started
Importants steps on the path to reducing excess weight include being ready to think about action, to think about taking action and to prepare to take action. That might mean telling friends and family you are serious about losing weight, and to seek whatever help may work - e.g. family doctor or nurse or other health professional, and support groups for the overweight.
What works?
Smaller portion size, cutting down on processed foods and increasing exercise are the big 3 factors that help. Keep a weight chart and if possible find a friend with whom to lose overweight. Wear a belt. Pace your eating and drink water with your food. Eat regular small meals. Avoid snacking, Research evidence suggests that successful measures include recording weight regularly, knowing the approximate energy intake of what you eat, and regular activity.
It is also clear that insight into the personal health risks of overweight provide extra incentive to lose weight. Better of course to reduce excess weight before serious clinical effects of overweight occur.
There are many support groups and diet plans available to order, often at high cost.
Research evidence suggests that success in maintaining weight loss is associated with clear strategies for coping with life stresses and with 'continued adherence to diet and exercise strategies, low levels of depression and disinhibition, and medical triggers for weight loss'. In contrast, unsuccessful weight maintainers are erratic or inconsistent in recording their weight and being vigilant in keeping to healthy types and amounts of food and in continuing regular activity.
Once overweight people have maintained a weight loss for 2-5 years, the chances of longer-term success in maintaining a healthy weight are much greater.
Apps
There an increasing variety of 'apps' for smartphones and PCs, that reinforce the combined impact of healthier dietary intake and maximising exercise. Many are free, with myfitnesspal an excellent example. These and other free lifestyle apps are like your personal health bank. The more active you are, the more energy balance you have towards losing weight, the more you eat, the less reserves in your health bank.
© DRJ Singer
@HealthMed
Thursday, 29 December 2011
Favourite poems on a medical theme from entries in the 2012 Hippocrates initiative poll
@HealthMed To mark the launch of the 2012 International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine, the organisers invited nominations of favourite poems with a medical theme. The top 5 favourites were:
Dylan Thomas – Do not go gentle into that good night
William Butler Yeats - When you are old
Dannie Abse - The Pathology of Colours
Jo Shapcott - Of mutability
Stevie Smith - Not waving but drowning
You can see examples of comments received and find links to many of the submitted favourite poems on the earlier blog on favourite poems on a medical theme.
'Medical' was to be interpreted in the broadest sense, with only one nomination to be made by any one person. Nominations were to be for poems written by a poet from anywhere in the world and in any language. The poem were to be contemporary or from any historical period.
Dylan Thomas – Do not go gentle into that good night
William Butler Yeats - When you are old
Dannie Abse - The Pathology of Colours
Jo Shapcott - Of mutability
Stevie Smith - Not waving but drowning
You can see examples of comments received and find links to many of the submitted favourite poems on the earlier blog on favourite poems on a medical theme.
'Medical' was to be interpreted in the broadest sense, with only one nomination to be made by any one person. Nominations were to be for poems written by a poet from anywhere in the world and in any language. The poem were to be contemporary or from any historical period.
The Hippocrates Prize of £5000 for the winning poem is one of the highest value awards in the world for an unpublished poem in English on a medical theme.
Entries for the 2012 Awards are now closed. 2012 Hippocrates Prize judges include New York poet and critic Marilyn Hacker and medical researcher Professor Rod Flower, Fellow of the Royal Society. Awards will be presented on Saturday 12th May 2012 at the 3rd International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine, to be held at the Wellcome Collection in London.
Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Stopping smoking - why and how?
@HealthMed UK No Smoking day is 14th March 2012: some helpful Q & As.
But no need to wait until then to stop ...
Why bother?
Apart from the obvious: cost, smell on clothes and breathe, and taste impairment and eventual loss of taste? Smoking is the single most preventable cause of disease and death.
For primary prevention, smokers and their advisers need to be well informed of the personally relevant risks of smoking and benefits of stopping. For younger smokers, risks include premature ageing of the skin, increased risk of impotence, risk to the developing baby in the womb, and increased risk in offspring of serious chest disorders. For older smokers, the more pressing risks are increased risk of cancer of the lung, mouth, throat, bladder and many other types of cancer; premature ageing of arteries, leading to heart attacks, strokes and other serious disorders of the heart, brain and circulation; and serious lung disorders including chronic obstructive lung disease and emphysema. And in the long-term, it is estimated that around half the smokers who do not give up smoking will die from one or more of these and other smoking-related diseases.
For non-smokers and confirmed ex-smokers the question has to be - why bother? Give up now to improve your medical and financial health.
For current smokers, the challenges are to beat the psychological, physical (nicotine), and social addiction, including resisting peer pressure. Useful ammunition to help smokers to stop smoking includes being aware that giving up tobacco can help you live longer, and that the risk of getting cancer is less with each year you stay smoke-free.
Help from friends and family
Now is a good time for smokers to be ready to think about stopping, to think about stopping and to prepare to stop. That might mean telling friends and family you are serious about stopping, and to seek whatever help may work - e.g. from pharmacist, family doctor or nurse, or other health professional, and smoking cessation support groups. The US National Institutes of Health recommend:
- 'Try not to view past attempts to quit as failures. See them as learning experiences'.
- 'Make a plan about what you will do instead of smoking at those times when you are most likely to smoke'.
- 'Satisfy your oral habits in other ways'.
Their website provides excellent advice on other ways to help to smoking including how to plan stopping, setting a stop date, and having alternative strategies for times you associate with smoking.
Stop smoking apps
There are now several free or low cost 'apps' which may be helpful. For example, the UK NHS mobile 'Quit smoking' app provides links for UK smokers to the NHS Stop Smoking helpline and other UK NHS Stop Smoking Servces. 'My Last Cigarette' - MLC provides a dashboard with daily changing reminders of dangers of smoking, and updating estimates of effects of stopping smoking on risk of heart disease, lung disease and other serious medical problems, money saved since stopping, life expectancy gained, and number of smoking-related deaths since the time a smoker has stopped.
Benefits of training health professionals and funding nicotine replacement treament
A controlled study in Germany reported benefits from extra training for family doctors, and further benefit when costs of anti-smoking treatment are subsidized. However, for these over 10/day cigarette smokers, although very helpful for those who succeed in stopping, outcomes were very modest: by
12 months after intervention, 1 in 30 had stopped with usual support, 1 in 10 when their family doctor had received training and been paid a €130 incentive for each patient who stopped, and 1 in 7 where patients also had costs of treatments subsidized.
Unexpectedly rapid benefits from banning smoking in public places
More recent encouragement for anti-smoking campaigns has come from evidence of the rapid time to benefit from stopping: around 1 in 5 fewer heart attacks within 1 year of stopping in countries which have moved to ban smoking in public places. That provides clear evidence to smokers that their cardiovascular risk reduces very rapidly after stopping smoking.
Avoiding temptation to smoke
A recent review of a large number of trials of ways to help people to stop smoking concluded that the evidence for success was 'strongest for interventions focusing on identifying and resolving tempting situations'.
If you are a smoker you quit, what worked for you? Please add a comment ...
© DRJ Singer
But no need to wait until then to stop ...
Why bother?
Apart from the obvious: cost, smell on clothes and breathe, and taste impairment and eventual loss of taste? Smoking is the single most preventable cause of disease and death.
For primary prevention, smokers and their advisers need to be well informed of the personally relevant risks of smoking and benefits of stopping. For younger smokers, risks include premature ageing of the skin, increased risk of impotence, risk to the developing baby in the womb, and increased risk in offspring of serious chest disorders. For older smokers, the more pressing risks are increased risk of cancer of the lung, mouth, throat, bladder and many other types of cancer; premature ageing of arteries, leading to heart attacks, strokes and other serious disorders of the heart, brain and circulation; and serious lung disorders including chronic obstructive lung disease and emphysema. And in the long-term, it is estimated that around half the smokers who do not give up smoking will die from one or more of these and other smoking-related diseases.
For non-smokers and confirmed ex-smokers the question has to be - why bother? Give up now to improve your medical and financial health.
For current smokers, the challenges are to beat the psychological, physical (nicotine), and social addiction, including resisting peer pressure. Useful ammunition to help smokers to stop smoking includes being aware that giving up tobacco can help you live longer, and that the risk of getting cancer is less with each year you stay smoke-free.
Help from friends and family
Now is a good time for smokers to be ready to think about stopping, to think about stopping and to prepare to stop. That might mean telling friends and family you are serious about stopping, and to seek whatever help may work - e.g. from pharmacist, family doctor or nurse, or other health professional, and smoking cessation support groups. The US National Institutes of Health recommend:
- 'Try not to view past attempts to quit as failures. See them as learning experiences'.
- 'Make a plan about what you will do instead of smoking at those times when you are most likely to smoke'.
- 'Satisfy your oral habits in other ways'.
Their website provides excellent advice on other ways to help to smoking including how to plan stopping, setting a stop date, and having alternative strategies for times you associate with smoking.
Stop smoking apps
There are now several free or low cost 'apps' which may be helpful. For example, the UK NHS mobile 'Quit smoking' app provides links for UK smokers to the NHS Stop Smoking helpline and other UK NHS Stop Smoking Servces. 'My Last Cigarette' - MLC provides a dashboard with daily changing reminders of dangers of smoking, and updating estimates of effects of stopping smoking on risk of heart disease, lung disease and other serious medical problems, money saved since stopping, life expectancy gained, and number of smoking-related deaths since the time a smoker has stopped.
Benefits of training health professionals and funding nicotine replacement treament
A controlled study in Germany reported benefits from extra training for family doctors, and further benefit when costs of anti-smoking treatment are subsidized. However, for these over 10/day cigarette smokers, although very helpful for those who succeed in stopping, outcomes were very modest: by
12 months after intervention, 1 in 30 had stopped with usual support, 1 in 10 when their family doctor had received training and been paid a €130 incentive for each patient who stopped, and 1 in 7 where patients also had costs of treatments subsidized.
Unexpectedly rapid benefits from banning smoking in public places
More recent encouragement for anti-smoking campaigns has come from evidence of the rapid time to benefit from stopping: around 1 in 5 fewer heart attacks within 1 year of stopping in countries which have moved to ban smoking in public places. That provides clear evidence to smokers that their cardiovascular risk reduces very rapidly after stopping smoking.
Avoiding temptation to smoke
A recent review of a large number of trials of ways to help people to stop smoking concluded that the evidence for success was 'strongest for interventions focusing on identifying and resolving tempting situations'.
If you are a smoker you quit, what worked for you? Please add a comment ...
© DRJ Singer
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)