Heart attack risk high with one cigarette a day: study

Agencies
January 25, 2018

Paris, Jan 25: Just one cigarette a day carries nearly half the risk for heart attack and stroke as smoking a full pack of 20, according to a large-scale study published Thursday.

"If someone smokes one cigarette instead of 20 per day, intuitively we'd think that the risk drops to 1/20, or five percent," said lead author Allan Hackshaw, a professor at University College London, whose paper analysed 141 previous studies.

"This seems to be the case for lung cancer, but is not true for heart attacks and stroke, where one cigarette per day carries around 50 percent of the risk of a pack a day," he told AFP.

Smokers should not be fooled, in other words, into thinking that a few cigarettes a day -- or even just one -- carries little or no long term harm, he added.

"Whilst it is great that smokers try to cut down -- and they should be positively encouraged to do so -- in order to get the big benefits on cardiovascular disease they need to quit completely," he said by email.

Tobacco kills about seven million people worldwide every year, according to the World Health Organization.

About two million of those deaths are due to cardiovascular disease, mainly coronary heart attacks and stroke.

Earlier research suggested that smoking a few cigarettes a day was linked to a higher-than-expected risk of heart disease, but findings were inconclusive.

To probe deeper, a team of scientists led by Hackshaw analysed the results of 141 studies, estimating the relative risk of one, five or 20 cigarettes a day.

They found that men who lit up once a day had 46 percent of the excess risk of heart disease associated with smoking a full pack a day, much higher than expected. For strokes, the excess risk was 41 percent.

For reasons that are not fully understood, the risk for women was somewhat smaller -- 31 and 34 percent, respectively.

"It could be a mixture of biological difference and differences in lifestyle," said Hackshaw.

Overall, long-term smoking shortens life expectancy by 12-15 years.

"This well conducted study confirms what epidemiologists have suspected but few among the public have," commented University of Oxford professor Paul Aveyard, who was not involved in the research.

"The implication is obvious -- anyone who smokes should stop."

At the same time, he added, it would be wrong to conclude that cutting down is useless.

"There is more reason to believe that lower cigarette consumption will reduce the risk of chronic lung disease and lung cancer, the other two big causes of early death from smoking," he said via Britain's Science Media Centre.

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Agencies
July 8,2020

Probiotics that broaden the mix of helpful bacteria in the gut may help to ease depression, say researchers.

Foods that broaden the profile of helpful bacteria in the gut are collectively known as probiotics. These "good bacteria" can be taken as supplements, or found naturally in yoghurts or fermented foods.

For the findings, the research team from the University of Brighton in the UK searched for relevant studies published in English between 2003 and 2019, which looked at the potential therapeutic contribution of pre-and probiotics in adults with depression and/or anxiety disorders.

Out of an initial haul of 71 studies, just seven met all the criteria for inclusion. All 7 investigated at least one probiotic strain; four looked at the effect of combinations of multiple strains.In all, 12 probiotic strains featured in the selected studies, primarily Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus casei, and Bifidobacterium bifidium.

One study looked at combined pre-probiotic treatment, while one looked at prebiotic therapy by itself. The studies varied considerably in their design, methods used, and clinical considerations, but all of them concluded that probiotic supplements either alone or in combination with prebiotics may be linked to measurable reductions in depression.

And every study showed a significant fall or improvement in anxiety symptoms and clinically relevant changes in biochemical measures of anxiety or depression with probiotic or combined pre-probiotic use.

Of the 12 different probiotics investigated, 11 were potentially useful, the findings showed.'Probiotics may help reduce the production of inflammatory chemicals, such as cytokines, as is the case in inflammatory bowel disease, the researchers suggested.

"They may help direct the action of tryptophan, a chemical thought to be important in the gut-brain axis in psychiatric disorders," they added.

In this way, with a better understanding of the mechanisms, probiotics may prove to be a useful tool across a wide range of conditions," the authors wrote.

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Agencies
June 11,2020

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that more research needs to be done to better understand the extent to which COVID-19 is being spread by people who don't show symptoms.

"Since early February, we have said that asymptomatic people can transmit COVID-19, but that we need more research to establish the extent of asymptomatic transmission," the WHO chief said at a virtual press conference from Geneva on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"That research is ongoing, and we're seeing more and more research being done," he added.

Saying that the world has been achieving a lot in knowing the new virus, the WHO chief told reporters that "there's still a lot we don't

"WHO's advice will continue to evolve as new information becomes available," he said.

Tedros stressed that the most critical way to stop transmission is to find, isolate and test people with symptoms, and trace and quarantine their contacts.

"Many countries have succeeded in suppressing transmission and controlling the virus doing exactly this," Tedros said.

Meanwhile, Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO Health Emergencies Program, said Wednesday that the COVID-19 pandemic is still evolving.

"If we look at the numbers... this pandemic is still evolving. It is growing in many parts of the world," he said. "We have deep concerns that health systems of some countries are struggling, under a huge strain and require our support, our help and our solidarity."

He said "each and every country has a different combination of risks and opportunities, and it's really down to national authorities to carefully consider where they are in the pandemic."

In Europe, the risk issue now are about travels and the opening of the schools, around risk management, mass gathering, surveillance and contact tracing, said the WHO official.

In Southeast Asian countries, where to a great extent transmissions have been under control, governments are more concerned about the re-emergence of clusters, while in South America, the issue of PPE for health workers has not gone away, said Ryan.

As regards Africa, Ryan said the death rates have been very low in the past week, but the health system can be overwhelmed, as it would have to cope with other diseases such as malaria.

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Agencies
May 30,2020

Drinking coffee may help reduce the risk of certain digestive disorders, including gallstone disease and pancreatitis, a new study has suggested.

The study from the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (ISIC) also highlighted other beneficial effects that coffee consumption may have on the process of digestion, including supporting gut microflora and promoting gut motility.

"Data indicates benefits against common digestive complaints such as constipation, as well as a potential reduction in the risk of more serious conditions like chronic liver diseases," said study author Carlo La Vecchia from the University of Milan in Italy.

Gallstone disease is a common digestive disorder, caused by the accumulation of gallstones in the gallbladder or bile duct, which affects approximately 10-15 per cent of the adult population.

While the mechanism by which coffee may protect against gallstone disease is not yet known, it has been observed that the risk for the condition declines with increasing daily consumption of coffee, the researchers said.

Caffeine is thought to play a role in these associations, as the same effect is not observed with decaffeinated coffee.

A common question among consumers and focus area for research is whether coffee is associated with heartburn or gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD).

While a small number of studies have suggested an association between coffee drinking and GORD, the majority of studies reviewed suggest that coffee is not a major trigger of these conditions.

The report also reviewed a growing area of health and nutrition research, namely: the effect of coffee on the gut microflora (microorganism populations).

Recent studies suggest that populations of the beneficial gut bacteria Bifidobacterium spp, increase after drinking coffee.

The findings showed the dietary fibre and polyphenols found in coffee, support the healthy growth of microflora populations.

Additional research findings highlighted that coffee consumption is thought to stimulate digestion by encouraging the release of gastric acid, bile and pancreatic secretions.

Coffee is one of the most widely researched components of the diet, and its effect on digestion remains a growing area of research, the researchers noted.

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