Scientists have made an important advance in understanding the genetic processes that give flowers, leaves and plants their bright colours. The knowledge could lead to a range of benefits, including better understanding of the cancer-fighting properties of plant pigments and new, natural food colourings.
New study findings show that exposure to on-screen smoking in movies has a strong correlation with beginning to smoke or becoming established smokers among young adults 18-25, a critical age group for lifelong smoking behavior.
Channel 4’s 4Talent and Cancer Research UK launch BREATHE on Monday 1 October 2007 – a joint initiative to produce a series of short online films to encourage young smokers to quit and deter others from starting. The competition launch coincides with new legislation making it illegal to sell tobacco products to people under the age of 18, an increase from 16.
Do young adults learn behaviors from movies? In a paper published in the November issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, examined the relationship between young adults (age 18-25) observing smoking in movies and the likelihood of starting to smoke.
The new study reveals that, in rats, chronic nicotine use recruits a major brain stress system, the extrahypothalamic corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) system, which contributes to continued tobacco use by exacerbating anxiety and craving upon withdrawal. The researchers found that administering a compound that blocked the receptors involved in this stress system alleviated withdrawal symptoms.
Hospitality workers’ exposure to harmful second hand smoke has fallen by 95 per cent since smokefree workplaces were introduced in England on 1_July 2007, according to new research revealed at the National Cancer Research Institute Conference in Birmingham on the three month anniversary of smokefree England.
14 to 18-year-old adolescents are at an increased risk to initiate smoking when they start to work, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Investigators found that adolescents who worked more than 10 hours per week also started smoking at an earlier age than their peers.
Over 40000 people of Nepal are suffering from heart diseases, according to a latest report published by the Nepal Heart Foundation (NHF). Heart diseases account for 25 per cent of the total deaths in the country, the report said.
The Oxford Health Alliance (OxHA), a global coalition with the aim of preventing the epidemic of chronic disease, is launching a groundbreaking public health research programme to enhance scientific knowledge about the effectiveness of community interventions in reducing the prevalence of chronic diseases.
Researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) have clarified the link between alcohol consumption and the risk of head and neck cancers, showing that people who stop drinking can significantly reduce their cancer risk.