Smoking News

Reuters Health Wednesday, November 10, 2004 NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The tobacco industry for many years claimed that it was unaware of biological evidence that smoking is harmful to health, but that was untrue according to a medical journal report. An article in The Lancet, to be published online on November 11th, says that documents made public as a result of a 1998 legal settlement show that Philip Morris sponsored secret research that revealed tobacco's addictive properties and the toxicity of second-hand smoke. Lead author Dr. Pascal A. Diethelm, at OxyRomandie in Geneva and colleagues conducted a search of these documents, which were posted on public Websites, as well as other information they found. Based on their findings, they say that "those involved in reviewing evidence on smoking and health should be aware of what appears to be the selective nature of what is eventually published by some scientists with links to the industry, and the evidence that sometimes mechanisms appear to have been used to disguise these links." Internal memos that Diethelm's group cites showed that executives of Philip Morris first identified a need for the company to conduct its own biological research in 1968. The company then bought a research facility in Germany, the Institut fur Industrielle und Biologische Forschung GmbH (INBIFO), which came on the market in 1970. Though 100-percent owned by Philip Morris, the investigators note, the company developed a complex mechanism to ensure that work done by INBIFO could not be linked back to the company. According to the Lancet article, direct contact with INBIFO was avoided by routing information through another subsidiary, Fabriques de Tabac Reunies (FTR), and a coordinator whose main employment was at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Evidence showed that the company sought to maintain confidentiality over results of research conducted at INBIFO. In one memo from 1977 that the Lancet authors found, a senior Philip Morris executive stated, "we have gone to great pains to eliminate any written contact with INBIFO." Information was often communicated verbally, on a "strict need to know basis," routed through FTR to avoid any direct contact with Philip Morris, or sent to home addresses where documents could be destroyed, Diethelm and his associates report. In the 1980s, animal experiments conducted by INBIFO demonstrated high levels of toxicity from so-called sidestream smoke. Diethelm's team traced "more than 800 scientific reports dealing with sidestream smoke undertaken by INBIFO between 1981 and 1989." However, they add, it was not until 1994 that researchers at INBIFO published research concerning sidestream smoke. Studies published in scientific journals during this time "appear to be of considerable value to the industry," the investigators write, "casting doubt upon the value of markers of passive smoking and suggesting alternative explanations for the observed epidemiological association between passive smoking and lung cancer." SOURCE: Lancet, online November 11, 2004. Reuters Health Friday, November 12, 2004 NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who smoke or use high amounts of table salt on their food appear to be at increased risk for gastroesophageal reflux, a disease in which stomach juices flow back into the esophagus, European researchers report. In contrast, tea and alcohol, which have been identified as culprits in past studies, did not increase the risk. Gastroesophageal reflux is best known as a cause of heartburn. However, if severe and untreated, the condition can raise the risk of esophagus cancer. Although the problems that can arise with gastroesophageal reflux are well documented, little is known about what actually causes the condition, lead author Dr. M. Nilsson, from the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, and colleagues note. Previous studies have looked at lifestyle habits as a possible cause, but many have been unable to reach firm conclusions due to insufficient numbers of patients. To address the size issue, Nilsson's team used a large study group - 3,153 people with symptoms of reflux and 40,210 people with no reflux symptoms. The researchers' findings appear in the medical journal Gut. The risk of gastroesophageal reflux increased as the number of years smoking rose. Compared with non-smokers, people who smoked for 1 to 5 years were 20 percent more likely to develop reflux, while people who smoked for longer than 20 years were 70 percent more likely. As noted, high salt intake also increased the risk of reflux. People who always put extra salt on regular meals were 70 percent more likely to develop reflux than people who never used extra salt. Also, eating meals of salted fish or meat more than twice a month increased the risk by 50 percent compared with never eating such meals. Certain lifestyle habits seemed to reduce the risk of reflux, such as eating bread high in dietary fiber and frequent exercise. Surprisingly, coffee intake, which has been tied to an increased risk of reflux in some studies, was actually linked to a decreased risk. However, the authors believe that the beverage may not really protect against reflux, rather patients with reflux simply avoid drinking coffee. "Tobacco smoking and table salt intake seem to be risk factors for gastroesophageal reflux symptoms," the authors conclude. In contrast, dietary fibers and physical exercise seem to protect against the condition, they add. SOURCE: Gut, December 2004. United Press International Tuesday, November 9, 2004 DENVER, Nov 08, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Antidepressant medication nortriptyline, combined with use of a transdermal nicotine patch, may help in smoking cessation, a U.S. study found. The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found that after six months, cessation rates were 23 percent for those taking nortriptyline and 10 percent for those taking a placebo. Dr. Allan Prochazka of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver found neither group experienced a reduction in withdrawal symptoms, however the nortriptyline group had a significantly higher rate of adverse effects than the placebo group. Thirty-eight percent of those who used the medication with the nicotine patch experienced dry mouth and 20 percent experienced drowsiness. Nortriptyline was discontinued in 13 percent of participants due to adverse effects, Prochazka said. "It is also clear from our data that subjects treated with nortriptyline require close monitoring for adverse events," the researcher wrote. "However nortriptyline combined with transdermal nicotine may prove to be a useful alternative for smokers in whom first-line smoking cessation therapies have failed." United Press International Wednesday, November 10, 2004 ATLANTA, Nov 10, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Smoking rates among U.S. adults have declined but not rapidly enough to achieve federal goals for 2010, health officials said Wednesday. Utah and the U.S. Virgin Islands have, for the first time, achieved the goal of less than 12 percent of adults smoking, as put forward by the Healthy People 2010 project, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in a study in the agency's journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. However, adult smoking rates are as high as 34 percent in some states. This indicates that unless states increase their smoking cessation and prevention efforts, the goal of less than 12 percent of adults smoking on a nationwide basis by 2010 will not be met, the CDC said. Further confounding the issue, state spending on tobacco control programs has dropped 28 percent in the past two years due to state budget shortfalls. Only four states -- Maine, Mississippi, Arkansas and Delaware -- are spending the minimum amount recommended by the CDC on these programs in 2004. 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