Lemondrop has a series of old advertisements for smoking. They're humorous in an I-can't-believe-they-said-that kind of way. A couple of the ads focus on how smoking can help keep you thin. Yeah, good idea. You'll have stinky breath, smelly clothes and hair, lung cancer, and emphysema ... but at least you'll be thin!

If you still believe the smoke-and-stay-thin myth, you'd better think again. Or somehow time travel back to the 1950s. A recent study suggests that teens who smoke are more likely to be overweight later in life. The researchers aren't suggesting that cigarettes themselves cause you to gain weight (though that might be a more effective deterrent than the Surgeon General's warning). Instead, it's thought that smoking in teenage years just becomes the first in a string of bad habits. Like burgers. And fries. And sugary soda. And chocolate. And, excuse me ... now I'm hungry.



Smoker or not, if you're looking to shed some extra pounds, check out America Takes It Off: Shrink a Size for great weight loss tips.

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My family had a birthday party for my mother recently. Even though it's downright chilly here, my oldest sister was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and kept fanning herself. Since I'm 15 years younger than she is, I got a little laugh out of her hot flashes. But it's only a matter of years before my time comes.

While the cause of hot flashes during perimenopause and menopause aren't fully understood, there are several health-related possibilities. Women who smoke are more likely to have hot flashes -- one more reason to quit -- and women who are overweight or obese are also more likely to have hot flashes. In addition, blood glucose levels may play a role in hot flashes.

If you're currently experiencing hot flashes, talk to your doctor. He/she may have nutrition or fitness suggestions that will help, and there are several medications that can help as well. If, like me, hot flashes are only a future possibility -- take action now. Make sure you maintain an appropriate weight and eat healthfully.

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Keep lifting the fork to your mouth and you'll have to fork over some cash. This is essentially the message the state of Alabama is sending out to its 37,000+ employees.

The state has already had a policy in place where smokers can either quit their habits or they must contribute to the costs of their health insurance. Recently state employees were told that they have a year to get their BMI under 35 or else they'll be charged $25 per month toward their insurance costs.

The state also has an upcoming plan in place for 2010 where, if state employees don't take free health screenings the state offers for them, they'll also be charged. If employees take the screening and conditions such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol are found, the employees will be offered free doctor visits and wellness programs to help improve the problem. A year later, they'll be screened again and if there's no improvement, they will be charged, too.

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For smokers who have had trouble quitting on their own, the prescription medication Chantix might have seemed like a lifeline. A pill to help them quit smoking. But sometimes artificial help comes at a cost.

The FDA had previously released warnings that people taking Chantix may experience suicidal thoughts. More recent reports are showing that in addition, many users are experiencing extreme sleepiness and possibly even seizures. In fact, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices linked the medication to more than two dozen traffic accidents.

In response to the concerns, the Federal Aviation Administration banned use of the medication for pilots and air traffic controllers.

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Many people lie about their smoking habits to their doctors (Why?!) but a simple test could be coming to your MDs office can can catch a secret smoker in his or her own lie. It's called the pulse cooximeter and it can detect abnormal carbon monoxide levels in your body simply from being clipped into your finger tip.

What do you think about this device? An invasion of privacy or a necessary measure? I think it's a great invention, because a doctor can adequately help a patient if they don't know whether the patient smokes or not -- and it could potentially save lives.

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According to this, smokers who are trying to kick the nicotine habit need to be treated like addicts hooked on a drug like heroin. Doctors say that those trying to quit smoking need to be given a product that provides a hit of nicotine as strong as one they'd get from a cigarette, much the same way that heroin addicts use methadone to quit that drug.

The article points out some scary statistics -- 100 million people died in the last century due to the negative effects of smoking cigarettes, 150 million will likely die over the next 20 years and a whopping 1 billion people are projected to die of smoking-related causes in the 21st century.

Unfortunately, those who want to quit only have access to products like nicotine gum or the patch, which deliver low doses of the drug, rather than the kind of fix a smoker would get from a cigarette. The solution? The piece mentions that better cigarette substitutes need to be developed to give smokers a better chance of kicking the habit.

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According to new research smokers need to be especially conscious of knee pain, as it could be an early indicator of lung cancer. In a small study looking at patients with both knee inflammation and pain, a small percentage (only 2%) were also found to have non-small cell lung cancer. Now that may sound like an extremely small number, but consider this: of that 2% that had both knee pain and cancer all of them were smokers.

Non-small cell lung cancer is very difficult to treat unless it's caught in the early stages, so getting this clue that knee pain could be an indicator could really help save lives.

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There are all kinds of different types of quit smoking assistance out there, but no matter what kind of help you get it's not an easy habit to break. And although doing so for the sake of your children is a powerful motivator, they can help you in more ways than you might have thought. A website called C.H.A.M.P.S.S. (Children Helping And Motivating Parents to Stop Smoking) provides resources and tips for kids on how to help their parents kick the habit, making suggestions like simply asking parents to quit and finding out what they can do to help and offer support.

C.H.A.M.P.S.S. is full of resources, offering advice and links for adults too on how to quit, and how to help keep kids and teens from starting up in the first place.

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It seems that restaurants and other public places aren't the only ones starting to ban smoking: more private households than ever before are following suit. Utah leads the nation with 9 out of 10 homes forbidding smoking, and the national average is lower but still pretty high at 3 out of 4.

I'm sure the smokers out there are feeling the pinch as they start getting shooed out to the patio not only at restaurants but now at their friends houses too. I do have sympathy since it's not an easy habit to break, but I'm also glad. I think the less everyone accepts smoking the easier it will be (in small ways) to quit, and the less people will get started in the first place.

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It seems like an easy tip, even an obvious one but if that's the case, then why are so many people still smoking? I'm not sure about the rest of our fair country but here in New York City it seems one out of four people I pass on the streets is lighting up, despite messages from everyone from the surgeon general to our moms (even the ones who smoke).

It's a familiar scene. As someone who in the distant past dappled in the smoking arena myself, I hear people constantly pretending they don't smoke when in fact they do. Whether it's a casual cigarette after dinner with the one friend who smokes, or claiming to only smoke on weekends or when bar hopping, it's all the same: smoking is smoking is smoking. The figure that has always stuck in my mind is that smoking only one cigarette a day increases the chances for heart disease by 25%. Just one.

A brief message from My NYC Government News, a newsletter from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene sent to my email inbox recently started a new and very frightening campaign to get New Yorkers to quit smoking. The tagline is Cigarettes are eating you alive. Sounds more like the tagline for a horror film than a health campaign, but it may just work. Included in the email was a less-than-enchanting poster I could download, print out and post to persuade a smoker to cease with a bit of malevolence.

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