Quick, what’s the first thing you do in the morning? Have a smoke, get some coffee, or check your Facebook updates?

It would be seriously interesting to see how many smartphone users indeed wake up in bed and look at their Facebook walls through one barely-open eye. And it seems that while we were busy sharing George Takei’s photos and playing CastleVille, we’ve all developed a bit of a creeping addiction. A study may have actually confirmed that Facebook has addictive properties, not entirely unlike that of alcohol and tobacco.

The Guardian reports that researchers distributed more than 200 BlackBerry handsets to 18 to 25 year old users, and what’s more interesting, the young adults actually used the BlackBerrys to like, go on Facebook and check things. Participants were pinged over periods lasting 14 hours or seven days, and asked to respond about how strong their social media craving was at that particular time. More than 10,000 responses were logged, and more than 7,200 responses indicated a strong urge to update.

While sex and sleep often won out over posting an update or farming crops, alcohol and booze were less compelling- mainly perhaps because, researchers surmise, they carry more financial and other types of costs to indulge, while Facebooking is still free. (Provided you post this picture to your wall and say “we won’t pay for Facebook.” Kidding!)

Researchers noted:

“With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs – long-term as well as monetary – and the opportunity may not always be the right one. So, even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still ‘steal’ a lot of people’s time.”

Are you addicted to Facebook, Twitter or other forms of social media?

Facebook More Addictive Than Booze and Cigs? Study Says Perhaps is a post from: The Inquisitr

However, they don’t facilitate picking up cute boys as much and are far more awkward to borrow from a stranger.

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[Infographic] How Smartphones are the New Cigarettes is a post from: The Inquisitr

The nicotine patch, designed to aid smokers in their quest to quit, has a unique side-effect according to recent studies. As it turns out, older adults with mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, actually find their memory improving thanks to the patch.

The clinical trial involved 67 non-smokers with MCI. Half of the patients wore a nicotine patch that delivered 15 milligrams of nicotine into their bloodstream per day. The other half wore simple placebo patches. The study was double-blinded, meaning that neither patients nor researchers knew during the study who was receiving the nicotine or the placebo.

After 6 months, patients treated with nicotine patches performed 46% better than average on memory tests, while placebo patients performed 26% worse. Dr. Paul Newhouse, lead author of the study:

“We’re pretty excited that we got a strong sign of improvement, and we think it has great implications going forward, [...] We reasoned that if it (nicotine treatment) helps in early Alzheimer’s, we might be able to move back even further into patients with mild memory loss,”

MCI is something of an in-between (or preview for things to come) between normal aging and dementia. People with MCI are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Nicotine stimulates the parts of one’s brain involved in learning and memory, parts that die off under the effects of Alzheimer’s.

Dr. Peter Whitehouse, one of the pioneering scientists in using nicotine to treat patients with Alzheimer’s is one part skeptical, one part hopeful about the implications of such research:

“The jury’s still out on whether nicotine is disease-modifying, But there’s never going to be one single silver bullet. We’re going to have to treat patients with a complex brain disease with multiple approaches.”

Maybe it’s time for me to quit smoking and invest in some patches. Then maybe I wouldn’t lose every pair of sunglasses after a week of owning them.

What do you think of this study? Seems a little far-fetched, but could nicotine patches work long-term to treat memory loss?

New Study Shows Nicotine Patch Can Be Used to Treat Memory Loss is a post from: The Inquisitr

Plastic surgeon Anthony Youn has an important message for smokers who plan to undergo a breast lift, if you smoke immediately following the procedure it can reduce blood flow to certain parts of your anatomy, causing your nipples to literally fall off.

According to Youn in his memoir “In Stitches” he had one patients who’s nipples turned purple shortly after the time of her surgery and he had to use desperate measures to save her nipples from being lost forever.

“We went medieval. We used leeches,” Youn writes. The leeches sucked out “old blood” that had been backed up in the woman’s nipples.

Youn now says that:

“In addition to the Surgeon General’s Warning that appears on cigarette packages,” there should be “a Plastic Surgeon’s Warning: If you are having a breast lift or reduction and you smoke, your nipples could turn black and fall off.”

According to Youn it is the carbon monoxide found in cigarette smoke that can slow blood flow to the nipples, while toxins from the cigarettes can act as a virtual tourniquet. As blood flow slows or stops to the healing part of the body it dies and must be removed or falls off.

[Image via ShutterStock.com]

Smoke A Cigarette And Your Nipples Could Fall Off [Medical Advice] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Throughout his presidency, aside from being a secret Muslim, a secret Kenyan and a secret socialist, one of the accusations that has dogged President Barack Obama is that he also has a poorly hidden secret habit of smoking.

Obviously, in this day and age, no American president would ever get away with being an out-and-out smoker, whipping out a cig after the State of the Union address or even on a White House balcony. (In fact, there was some minor conservative outrage when President Obama moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that he might be smoking up the tapestries and drapes.)

Obama didn’t conceal his post-smoker status (an exam earlier this year revealed that the President was no longer smoking) when addressing Americans today for the Great American Smokeout, citing tobacco companies he said ”don’t want to be honest about the consequences” of smoking with Americans. Obama said:

“Tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable early deaths in this country. We also know that the best way to prevent the health problems that come with smoking is to keep young people from starting in the first place.”

However, the White House’s interest in helping Americans quit smoking is not just intellectual. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius writes on the White House website:

…for those of you who are making the commitment to quit, you are not alone and we have resources to help you succeed. You can visit HHS.gov today to connect with a smoking cessation expert via IM or phone, use the online step-by-step quit guide, or sign up for SmokefreeTXT a texted based smoking cessation program. And under the Affordable Care Act insurance companies are required to cover recommended preventive services, including tobacco cessation counseling without charging you an extra penny out of your own pocket.

Have you tried to quit smoking this year, or do you plan to quit smoking? Do you think such measures will help?

Quit Smoking? Obama Says It’s Hard, Urges Americans to Participate in Smokeout is a post from: The Inquisitr

We all know the dangers of smoking and it is good to know that almost 70 percent of Americans who smoke would like to quit, a report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed.

Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the Office on Smoking and Health at CDC said:

“This study is reassuring to us. There has been a decline in the last five years in the rate of smoking, and smokers are actually smoking less.”

The report said that 68.8 percent of smokers would want to quit, with 52.4 percent of this group attempting to quit during the past year.

About 48 percent of smokers who visited their doctor in the past year said were told to quit. Moreover, 31.7 percent had counseling alone or with drugs to help them quit in the past year. Only about 6 percent quit successfully in the past year.

Education also played a role for those who were able to quit smoking, where 11 percent of those with a college degree were able to quit, compared with 3 percent of those who did not finish from high school.

It should be noted though that 20 percent of US high school students smoke cigarettes.

FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg said:

“For many young people, that first cigarette or use of smokeless tobacco will lead to a lifetime of addiction, and for many, serious disease. More than 80 percent of adult smokers begin smoking before 18 years of age. Retailers are vital partners in the FDA’s efforts to prevent tobacco use among kids.”

Are you a smoker? Have you tried quitting? How effective was it and how did you do it?

Most American Smokers Want to Quit– CDC is a post from: The Inquisitr

Just a week after the release of a federally-sponsored study attesting to the safety of the drug Chantix- used to help patients quit smoking- an independent drug safety group has released a study linking the controversial drug to risk of suicide.

Unsurprisingly, the FDA and manufacturer Pfizer are not pleased with the study’s results and refute its findings. Chantix has been on the market for four years in the US, but the study has found that 90% of all suicides related to anti-smoking treatments have involved Chantix, during the period between 1998 and 2010. Mental health risks associated with Chantix are not entirely unknown- users report some terrifying phenomena while using the medication- but the study assigns some hard and fast numbers to those anecdotes finding Chantix users are eight times more likely to result in suicidal behavior or depression than use of nicotine-replacement gums, patches, lozenges, and inhalers.

Study researcher with the group Safe Medicine Practices Thomas J. Moore said the study leads the group to conclude that ”[Chantix is not suitable for use as a first choice for people who are trying to stop smoking,” and notes that the FDA study relied on hospitalization records, making it “fatally flawed.” Moore points out that suicide “does not result in hospitalization.”

Pfizer spokesman MacKay Jimeson criticized the independent study, saying the data could have been influenced by other sources:

“Post-marketing reports can come from any source ranging from patients to health care providers, and from phone calls to Internet postings and lawyers,” he tells WebMD. “Because of the many limitations of post-marketing reports, the conclusions made by the authors are not supported by the data.”

Have you relied on Chantix to quit smoking? Did you find the side effects difficult to handle?

Chantix Linked to Suicide Risk in Study, FDA Disagrees is a post from: The Inquisitr

A recent study of the smoking cessation drug Chantix has led a group of researchers to conclude that the drug should only be used as a last ditch effort to quit smoking.

According to the study users of Chantix are eight times more likely to commit suicide or suffer from depression when compared to other leading tobacco replacement products such as nicotine gum or the nicotine patch.

The new finding comes just one month after the  Food and Drug Administration released two studies that stated use of the drug does not increase psychiatric problems such as depression. The FDA however said their studies were flawed because they were too small to identify rare events.

Speaking about their findings Dr Curt Furberg, professor of Public Health Sciences at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and co-author of the study published online in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS One said:

“Our study contradicts the implications of a recent review by the FDA showing no difference in psychiatric hospitalizations between varenicline and nicotine replacement patches.”

Dr. Furberg added:

“The FDA hospitalization studies were flawed because they could not capture most of the serious psychiatric side effects, including suicide, depression, aggression and assaults. These can be catastrophic events but do not normally result in hospitalization.”

The study is quick to point out that only 10 percent of Chantix users quit smoking within a one year period which makes taking the drug more dangerous then other successful options when psychological risk is added into the equation.

Have you successfully quit smoking thanks to Chantix?

Chantix Use Raises Suicide Risk [Study] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Addiction treatment could soon be revolutionized if one Dr. Kim Janda has his way. The San Diego-based chemist has spent 25 years attempting to develop vaccines that will help to eradicate addictions such as smoking or the use of cocaine.

In theory, such a vaccine would mean people feel nothing when they light a cigarette, or gain none of the highs associated with cocaine.

In a new report at The New York Times, Janda admits neither of these vaccines are imminent, but says development is well underway. Whereas once vaccines were exclusively developed to combat diseases, addiction and substance abuse has now become an additional target. Says Dr. Janda:

“We view this as an alternative or better way for some people. Just like with nicotine patches and the gum, all those things are just systems to get people off the drugs.”

The vaccines, he explains, would be administered after someone had fallen foul of an addiction, and would be designed to make the immune system produce antibodies that would shut down the narcotic before it took root in the body or brain.

Dr. Janda has already run trials, with cocaine addicts who had been vaccinated with one of his formulations before they snorted cocaine saying they felt as though they’d used “dirty coke.”

The 54-year-old doc says attitudes toward addiction treatment have changed. Addiction, explains Janda, is now thought to cause physical changes in the brain, meaning doctors are increasingly willing to promote medical solutions to drug problems in society. This has led to wider interest in his work.

There’s a lot more on Dr. Janda’s work in the New York Times article here – if you find the subject of addiction as interesting as I do, it’s well worth a read.

The Future of Addiction Treatment? Addiction Vaccines is a post from: The Inquisitr

Haemorrhage to her vocal chords has forced Adele to cancel her upcoming 10-city sold out tour in the US.

Adele posted this message on her site Adele.tv about the cancellations:

“singing is literally my life, its my hobbie, my love, my freedom and now my job. I have absolutely no choice but to recuperate properly and fully, or i risk damaging my voice  forever. i have great confidence in believing you know how much this upsets me, how seriously i take it and how truly devastated and annoyed i am by this. wanting to do something so bad and not being able to is the most frustrating thing as im sure you know! my voice is weak and i need to build it back up. I’m  gonna be starting up vocal rehab as soon as, and start building my over all stamina in my voice, body and mind. i will be back and im gonna smash the ball out the park once im touring again. i apologise from the bottom of my heart, sincerely i do. i know its not only disappointing because of the show, but its plane tickets, hotel bookings, birthdays, anniversaries and time wasted. but please have faith in me that this is the only thing i can do to make sure i can always sing and always make music for you to the best of my ability. truly yours and yours only forever, adele xx”

Adele has just wrapped up touring around the UK and was preparing to kick off her US tour on October 7 in Atlantic City, NJ when her illness reappeared. Vocal chord issues forced the British singer to postpone dates earlier this year as well.

Adele has been advised by doctors that she’ll need an extended rest period in order to begin to recuperate properly.

Aside from rest, Adele should be advised to rest or get rid permanently of her smoking habits.

Adele Cancels US Tour (How About Quitting Smoking) is a post from: The Inquisitr

Smoking is generally not placed alongside prenatal vitamins and avoiding daily fish as good things to do when you’re pregnant.

But a new study out of the University College London Cancer Institute sheds more light on the specifics of birth defects thought to be caused by smoking and the research suggests the risks may be more serious than previously thought. Lead author of the study Dr. Allan Hackshaw commented that the public health information on birth defects caused by smoking while pregnant are scant, but that that’s “largely because of past uncertainty over which ones are directly linked.”

The data reads like something from a horror film, and should serve to put very many more pregnant women off their cigarettes if the pack warnings did not. Hackshaw and his team reviewed data from studies over the past half decade and discovered a 33% increase in risk of skull defects, 28% increase in risk of a cleft palette and the same for clubfoot, 27% higher risk of gastrointestinal defects, 26% higher risk of limb deformity or missing limbs and a 10% increase in risk of heart defects.

Of the findings, Hackshaw said:

“Now we have this evidence, advice should be more explicit about the kinds of serious defects that babies of mothers who smoke during pregnancy can suffer from,” Hackshaw said. “The message from this research is that women should quit smoking before becoming pregnant, or very early on, to reduce the chance of having a baby with a serious and lifelong physical defect.”

The study did not determine the specific way smoking may cause birth defects, but cited more than 4,000 chemicals that could harm a developing fetus.

Birth Defects From Smoking Clarified By Researchers is a post from: The Inquisitr

One of the more influential decisions a person can make on their current and future health is whether to continue smoking or to quit.

Chantix is a smoking cessation drug that has gained popularity for its higher than average quit rates, but it also has drawn attention for its sometimes-scary side effects. Now there is new research suggesting that Chantix could aggravate risk of cardiovascular incidents- even in people who previously were considered low risk. Dr. John Spangler co-authored a “meta-analysis” published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, and Spangler has been banging this drum for a long time:

“I had spoken to JAMA and LANCET and people from Pfizer, and emailed the FDA, and no one was very interested or concerned about the things I was finding,” Spangler says.

Spangler worked with Dr. Sonal Singh on the study. Singh is an assistant professor of general internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the two reviewed 14 previous studies on Chantix. What they found overall was that Chantix users had a 72% increased risk of being hospitalized for cardiovascular events versus study participants taking a placebo.

Singh said the drug could have a lower risk/benefit ration than previously thought:

“In the proportion of smokers that had never had heart disease, we saw an even greater risk of adverse events, about 150 percent increased risk,” says Singh.

“The main goal of smoking cessation is to reduce the risk of heart attack that comes with being a smoker, but this drug is doing the exact opposite. It’s increasing the risk of what they’re trying to avoid,” Singh says.

Singh noted that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considered cardiovascular warnings when the drug came to market in 2006, but ultimately decided evidence for the side effects was inconclusive.

Chantix Use May Carry Heart Risks, Even in Healthy People is a post from: The Inquisitr

The graphic ads released to combat smoking earlier this week were scary, but for geeks, this may have more impact.

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Anti-Smoking Ad For Gamers is a post from: The Inquisitr

A study on the effects of drugs to treat depression accidentally yielded some insight into why those who quit smoking may put on weight during and after the quitting process.

Associate research scientist at Yale, Yann Maneur, says during a study on laboratory animals at the university, it became apparent some of the subjects began to eat less than they had been. Maneur explains:

We found that nicotine, when it enters the brain, activates specific nicotine receptors that are located on specific neurons known to decrease feeding and increase energy expenditure when activated.”

Essentially, CBS News points out, nicotine triggers a brain pathway that signals “you’ve had enough, put that cake down.” Then it prompts your body to use energy. But Maneur adds the study is not meant to advocate smoking, “of course.” Maneur did not say whether nicotine replacement therapies or devices such as the electronic cigarette (or e-cigarette) would provide the same weight gain inhibition.

The study was reported in the journal Science.

Link Between Smoking Cessation, Weight Gain Partially Explained is a post from: The Inquisitr

Data collected from two previous studies suggests children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder are far more likely to become dependent on certain substances, including alcohol, cigarettes and drugs.

The studies revealed that kids with ADHD were one and a half times more likely to develop substance dependent behaviors, and a third of the children in the study eventually exhibited the substance issues. 268 children were studied- one study dealt with girls with ADHD, and the other measured boys who had the condition.

Dr. Timothy Wilens, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, commented on the study in a news release:

“Our study, which is one of the largest set of longitudinal studies of this issue to date, supports the association between ADHD and substance abuse found in several earlier studies and shows that the increased risk cannot be accounted for by co-existing factors such as other psychiatric disorders or family history of substance abuse.”

Family history and gender did not impact the results, but the presence of a “conduct disorder” did. Only a quarter of the kids who did not have conduct disorders developed substance abuse issues, versus the third who were diagnosed with ADHD as children.

Study: Kids With ADHD More Likely to Develop Substance Abuse Problems is a post from: The Inquisitr

Smokers in New York City have one more irritation to contend with, as the sweeping ban on smoking in parks, at beaches and even in some pedestrian thoroughfares has gone into effect today.

Under the new law, scofflaws could be fined $50 for their surreptitious smokes. However, Mayor Bloomberg says cops aren’t going to go hunting for renegade nicotine addicts, and will rely on other New Yorkers to enforce the law by being those people who ask you to put out your cigarette:

We expect that the new law will be enforced mostly by New Yorkers themselves, who will ask people to follow the law and stop smoking. This is how similar laws have worked in other places, including Chicago and Los Angeles… New Yorkers are encouraged to inform a Parks Department employee or a Park Enforcement Officer if one is available. Otherwise, complaints can be made by calling 311.

While it might make the city less smoky, the ban also stands to make New York a far crankier place. Disgruntled smokers may turn to smokeless products, such as Snus, or the relatively-newish electronic cigarette, which gives users a nicotine boost without smoke, tar or ash.

Will the smoking ban affect you? Have similar bans been enacting where you live?

[Image]

Outdoor smoking ban goes into effect in NYC today is a post from: The Inquisitr

There has to be at least one.

[source unknown]

The upside of smoking is a post from: The Inquisitr

Today in unsurprising medical findings, a study has determined smokers are more likely to develop an “aggressive” form of kidney cancer than non-smokers.

Over 800 patients were included in the study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and smokers were more heavily affected with the illness than those who do not smoke. One in four of those undergoing surgery for the form of cancer smoked, compared with one in five patients who were classed as non-smokers. The cancer was also found to be more aggressive in smokers than non-smokers.

According to the American Cancer Society, one in 70 Americans will ultimately develop kidney cancer. In 70% of cases, survival rates are up to 70% if the disease is caught in its early stages. That rate falls to only 8% survival when the cancer spreads beyond that stage. Mayo Clinic kidney cancer expert Alexander S. Parker noted that smokers are also less likely to focus on overall healthcare, which could account for the disparity:

“If this is true, then it would not be the case that the biology of these tumors is different,” he told Reuters Health in an email. “Rather, just that the individuals themselves have less contact with the health care system and are less likely to be diagnosed when their cancers are at an early, treatable stage.”

Overall, smokers have “twice the risk” of developing kidney cancer.

[Study] Smokers more likely to suffer “aggressive” kidney cancer is a post from: The Inquisitr

Perhaps as a testament to the pull tobacco addiction has on those in its clutches, a new study reveals one in five patients with lung cancer continue to smoke, according to the US National Cancer Institute.

The perhaps unsurprising statistic was revealed in a study, and one of the lead author’s says the ailing smokers may feel it’s pointless to attempt smoking cessation after the sobering diagnosis:

“The biggest obstacle is fatalism, the belief that it is too late to quit smoking so why bother,” said Kathryn E. Weaver, study lead author and assistant professor of social sciences and health policy at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C.

“There are benefits to be gained by quitting that have important implications for survival, response to treatments, and quality of life,” she said.

The study, published in the medical journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, reveals and even higher proportion of caregivers for those stricken with lung cancer continue to smoke- 25% of caregivers for lung cancer patients and 20% of colorectal cancer patients. Patients who continue smoking risk complications including secondary cancers.

Nearly one in five lung cancer patients continue smoking is a post from: The Inquisitr

Okay, the study actually used the film Matchstick Men, but Boardwalk Empire is more topical and seriously, if you’re a smoker, have you tried to watch this show without chain smoking?

The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, used magnetic resonance imaging (a.k.a. MRIs) to measure cigarette cravings while watching the film in those who smoke and those who do not:

The researchers scanned the brains of smokers and non-smokers while they watched film stars puff on a cigarette. The scans showed that specific parts of the brain went into action, but only if the person was a smoker. The particular brain areas were involved in planning and coordinating movements in the person’s smoking hand – as if the brain were preparing itself for the physical actions required for smoking.

The study also suggested the participants with the itchiest reward circuit triggers jonesed for a fag the hardest:

Other brain circuits that dealt with urges and rewards also flickered into life when smokers saw actors light up on screen. At the end of the study, it was the smokers who had the most active reward circuits who said they craved a cigarette the most.

Matchstick Men was picked because it contained scenes with smoking but scant sex and violence. It should be noted that subjects were not told the study was about smoking. Smoking in films and on TV has become a far less common sight in recent years, but the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention says about half of films still feature the much-maligned practice.

What films and shows make you want to light up the most, if you smoke or have been a smoker?

Doctor-scientists: Watching ‘Boardwalk Empire’ really does make you want to smoke eleventy-hundred cigarettes is a post from: The Inquisitr