That's Fit

In most cases, staying healthy requires that you do something. Work out, watch what you eat, etc. All said, it's clear that it's much easier to be unhealthy than it is to be healthy. But one of the few cases when not doing something is actually better for you is smoking cigarettes.

There have been numerous studies on the ill effects that smoking has on the human body. From your lungs to your skin, smoking will do a number on you. And, in some men, it can even cause erectile dysfunction.

Now, as for not doing something -- that is, not smoking -- the effects are almost immediate. Within 20 minutes of quitting, your heart rate and blood pressure will lower. After two weeks, your circulation will improve and your lungs become more functional. What do you say? Is it time to quit?

Bad news for women in the Washington Post yesterday. A study, also published yesterday, reveals evidence that life expectancy is falling for a significant number of American females.

According to the Post, the study cites that in nearly 1,000 counties that together are home to about 12 percent of the nation's women, life expectancy is now shorter than it was in the early 1980s. This marks the first decline in life expectancy for a significant number of women since the Spanish influenza of 1918, the Post reports.

I don't use Twitter, but I've heard it's pretty addictive. You know what else is addictive? Cigarettes. So some smart person put two and two together and created Qwitter, a Twitter-powered social networking service for people who are trying to quit smoking.

Qwitter does a few things for its users. It tracks the number of cigarettes smoked per day, and provides a place where those who are giving up smoking can turn to to track their progress and share the process with other quitters. They've also provided a few "qwit tips" for newcomers to look over before they get started.

So if micro-blogging and social networking are your thing, and you believe it's time to ditch the cigarettes for good, take a look at Qwitter and see if it could be a part of your support system.

My seven-year-old son is fascinated with smoking. When he finds people doing it, he fixes his eyes on them and studies their behavior. "Look! That guy in the car is smoking," Joey might say while observing -- well, staring -- and soaking up all that is unfamiliar to him.

I guess that's the job of a little boy -- to figure out the actions that surround him. Which makes it the job of his mommy to help him make sense of it all. So that's what I do, all the while hoping I steer him into adopting a repulsion for smoking and not an affection for it. Sometimes, when he holds a twig between his fingers and then places it in his mouth, letting it dangle with perfect lip control, I worry that repulsion is a long way off. Then I remember he is only seven years old. There's still time.

"Why do people smoke?" Joey asked me the other day in the car, just after we walked by a man smoking outside a Walgreen's drugstore. "Yuck," Joey declared as he walked through the man's cloud of smoke. "Yes! He thinks it's yucky," were my first thoughts. Then I did my best at answering Joey's question.

The incidence of throat cancer -- also known as esophageal adenocarcinoma -- is on the rise. So is obesity. And it seems the two are linked. Actually, it's the increasing intake of total and refined carbohydrates and the subsequent climb of obesity rates that are connected with the disease.

While these measures do not necessarily reflect individual risk for throat cancer, researchers say that overall, this cancer is "strongly correlated" with high carbohydrate consumption. This cancer is also associated with gastoesophageal relflux (GERD) which happens to also be linked with obesity and high carb intake.

Interestingly, researchers found a decrease in rates of squamous cell cancer of the esophagus which is more affected by smoking. Does that mean people are smoking less. Could be.

How good are you doing at avoiding cancer? Take this AOL Body cancer quiz and find out.

As it turns out, it isn't worth a pound of cure, according to the Washington Post.

I was more than a little disheartened to read the cover story in the Health section of yesterday's paper. Apparently, as the story points out with examples, an ounce of prevention is worth a whole lot less than a pound of cure despite political campaign banter claiming otherwise. Not even close, in fact. The scales are actually tipped the other way. It's cheaper to let people get sick. Smoking cessation, colonoscopies for guys in their 60s and childhood vaccinations are among exceptions.

The article mentions at the very end a point that I think is bigger than dollars and cents. Paying for good health is an investment. And a good one. I wonder how any attempt to calculate the cost of prevention and measure it up against cure can be absolutely accurate. The examples in the Post are convincing. Giving a bunch of people cholesterol-reducing drugs in an effort to prevent heart disease that will develop in only a fraction of them clearly requires a heap o' dough for prescriptions. But if life is all about how much things cost and that leads to deciding whether our health -- and by extension our very lives -- are worth the expense, what's the point anyway? Have we really reached a point at which money is more valuable than life?

Wow. I think our society needs a colonoscopy. On second thought, we can save the money. I think we can skip ahead to diagnosing cancer. The good news: I believe this type can be cured. What do you think? What's the cure? Am I wrong? Do you disagree with the diagnosis?

Remember the Marlboro Man? He was a pretty tough looking hombre, wasn't he? And how about those male movie stars from the golden age of cinema; they looked like pretty tough with those cigarettes dangling from their lips, didn't they? Well, if the makers of these commercials and films really wanted to portray cigarette smokers accurately, they may have been better off using more wimpy looking guys.

It turns out that there is yet another reason (add this to the list of the hundreds of others) why smoking is bad for your health, and this one has to do with muscle growth. A study conducted at the Copenhagen Muscle Research Center in Denmark revealed that smoking interferes with protein synthesis in muscle, making growth and repair more difficult.

What do the following healthy habits have in common?

• Not smoking
• Getting regular exercise
• Drinking alcohol only in moderation
• Eating copious amounts of fruits and vegetables

If your answer had anything to do with prolonging your life, you're absolutely right. But just how much added time are we talking about here? A year? Two years? Five years? Not even close: try 14 years!!

A study of 20,000 people aged 45-79, researchers discovered that those who followed all four of the above stated habits lived fourteen years longer than their peers, even when socioeconomic status, body size, and other outside variables were controlled for. What's more, it was also found that life extension could also occur -- though to a lesser degree -- when just a few, and not all, of these healthy habits were followed.

Genetics may be to blame for hooking some people on cigarettes. Genetics may make some smokers more prone to lung cancer too, say three new studies. This is the strongest case so far for the biological foundation of nicotine addiction.

Scientists have pinpointed genetic variations related to smoking that could one day lead to screening tests and customized treatments for those trying to kick the habit.

The gene variations, which govern nicotine receptors on cells, could help explain some of the mysteries of chain smoking, nicotine addiction, and lung cancer -- like why a 90-year-old lifetime smoker never gets cancer, why some people can occasionally light up and never get hooked, and why some people have such a hard time quitting.

Initially, researchers are pretty certain that a smoker who inherits these genetic variations from both parents has an 80 percent greater chance of lung cancer than a smoker without the variants. That same smoker tends to light up two extra cigarettes a day and has a much harder time quitting than smokers who don't have these genetic differences.

The three studies, funded by U.S. and European governments and published Thursday in the journals Nature and Nature Genetics, looked at more than 35,000 white people of European descent in Europe, Canada, and the United States. Blacks and Asians will be studied soon.

If you're a former smoker, you've already done wonders for your health by quitting. But insofar as lung cancer is concerned, the damage caused in the past may still come back to haunt some people. The good news is that there may be ways to help stave off this post-cessation lung cancer, and all it involves is eating some veggies.

A study conducted at the University of Texas revealed that ex-smokers, who consumed around 2 cups of leafy greens and 1 cup of chopped vegetables per week, were half as likely to get lung cancer than those who ate less servings of these veggies.

To further target-harden your body against lung cancer, you should also begin a regular exercise program of some kind. Based on a 2006 study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Minnesota, regular activity can reduce the risk of lung cancer for former smokers by 23 percent.

A renowned neurosurgeon and cancer expert recently made strong statements against cell phones, warning that regular use could double a person's risk of developing brain cancer. Though studies have refuted the claim that radiation from cell phones can be damaging, Dr. Vini Kurana says that that research did not take into consideration that most cancers take 10 years to develop and were too short-sighted.

Dr. Kurana went as far to say that cell phones could be more dangerous than smoking or asbestos and called on government officials to regulate their use. That's a pretty radical statement -- more dangerous than smoking? I'm doubtful that one man's research will change the habits of millions of cell phone users around the world, but still...I'd like to hear more. What do you think?

Recent research shows that the anniversary of a parent's death can trigger sudden death, particularly for men. Researchers think the mental stress from the anniversary of the event may induce sudden death in people that are prone to heart failure. People at risk will likely have a family history of heart attack, sudden death, and/or coronary disease. Other risk factors include high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, obesity, or a sedentary lifestyle.

Researchers evaluated 102 sudden deaths of people between 37 and 79 years old. 70% of those people died from coronary artery disease. 12% of the people died on the anniversary of a parent's death. 80% of those who died on an anniversary date were male.

50%. As many as 50% of cancer deaths could be avoided by making healthy lifestyle choices. 50%! That's huge. A recent American Cancer Society report states that, as we already knew, a healthy lifestyle can reduce cancer risk. But adding to that, the report states that 50% of deaths could be avoided. Good nutrition, not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, keeping alcohol to a minimum, and getting the appropriate medical screenings (check with your doctor for specific recommendations) are all important in preserving your good health.

More than 170,000 cancer deaths in the US are related to smoking; quitting may be the most important step you take to reduce your risk of cancer. Obesity is another prominent factor in cancer risk; it's the root of more than 180,000 US cancer deaths each year.

It's a generally accepted fact that women should quit smoking and drinking while pregnant. But it's helpful for dads-to-be to quit as well. Not necessarily because of second-hand smoke (though that's a danger as well), but mainly because when one partner continues the unhealthy habits it makes it all the harder for the other to quit. If dad continues to smoke and/or drink it's harder for mom to quit and she's more likely to pick the habits back up after childbirth.

Researchers studied hundreds of expectant moms' and dads' substance abuse over a three-year period (including pregnancy). Their findings include:

• 77% of female cigarette smokers and 50% of marijuana smokers used those substances to some degree during pregnancy; only 38% and 24% respectively reported cigarette or marijuana smoking.
  
• Overall rates of smoking and drinking declined during pregnancy, but picked back up within six months after childbirth.

Quite a few years ago I wrote an article regarding the concept that 3 servings of low-fat dairy a day could help you lose weight. Then it was uncovered that the sponsor of the original study had ties to the dairy industry. Hmmm... makes you pause and think about how unbiased the study was, doesn't it? It's unfortunately the case with a lot of studies. Research is time consuming and expensive, so financial backing is necessary. Often, the finances come from an organization with a vested interest in the result. Any researcher worth his or her salt will perform an unbiased and accurate study regardless of the sponsor, however. And, if the sponsor wants accurate results, they should demand nothing less. Sometimes, however, the sponsorship of a study makes people question the results.

Such is the case with a 2006 study that determined lung scans might help save smokers from cancer. Big tobacco indirectly financed the study by making sizable donations (to the tune of 3.6 million) to a foundation that was listed as a sponsor of the study. Researchers properly revealed the study sponsors, but the indirect connection to big tobacco wasn't revealed. At this point, there is no indication that the study's findings are in any way tainted.