A single puff can hook young smokers
A single puff on a cigarette may drag a teen into smoking addiction, a new study suggests.
Researchers say almost a third of kids interviewed who tried smoking said their first cigarette brought them a feeling of relaxation, and two-thirds of those kids became smokers.
“This provides further support for the idea that dependence begins with the first cigarette,” said study lead author Dr. Joseph DiFranza, a professor in the department of family medicine and community health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Mass.
From 2002 through 2006, the study authors tracked the smoking habits of 217 6th graders, averaging age 12, whom they recruited from six schools in Massachusetts.
Experiencing that feeling of being “relaxed” immediately after the first puff of a cigarette was the leading predictor of becoming dependent on cigarettes and then being unable to quit, the researchers found.
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Weight loss cuts blood pressure if done in time
An Italian study shows that if overweight people reduce their weight to normal within a certain time, they may also cut their blood pressure to healthy levels. But the weight loss has to be achieved before the borderline to outright obesity is crossed, said Dr. Roberto Fogari, professor of medicine at the University of Pavia.
The study suggests that, in many cases, high blood pressure “is secondary to overweight,” Fogari said. “So, in the first stages of overweight, if we can induce people to reduce overweight, they can also avoid being treated for hypertension.”
After six months, 53 percent of the men and 49 percent of the women in the study achieved normal body weight and a 5 percent reduction in blood pressure. “The other 50 percent of those in the study already had abnormal changes in the vascular tree — blood-vessel system — so that hypertension was no longer reversible by losing weight,” Fogari said.
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Mom’s low cholesterol can harm fetus
Although lower cholesterol generally is considered a good thing, new research suggests that very low cholesterol levels in pregnant women may harm the fetus.
Expectant mothers whose total cholesterol levels were less than 159 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) gave birth to babies weighing about a third of a pound less than babies born to mothers whose cholesterol levels exceeded 159 mg/dL, the researchers found.
Additionally, 12.7 percent of white women with low cholesterol levels gave birth prematurely, compared with just 5 percent of those with higher cholesterol levels. No such association was found in black women, however.
“To our surprise, we found that white women with very low cholesterol also have a significant risk of having babies born prematurely,” said Dr. Max Muenke, chief of medical genetics at the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Md.
One expert said that “cholesterol is a building block for membranes, hormones and proteins, so it makes sense that if you have low cholesterol, your baby won’t have the substrate it needs to grow.”
