Smoking Cessation News & Features

Between 2011 and 2018, the number of high school teens who started vaping, as e-cigarette use is called, increased from 220,000 (1.5 percent) to just over 3 million (20.8 percent), according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that it will limit or ban access to flavored e-cigarettes, menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.

Earlier in November, media reports suggested that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would soon ban sales of most flavored electronic cigarettes in retail stores and gas stations across the United States.

The agency will also mandate age age-verification measures for online sales to prevent minors from buying the flavor pods.

U.S. smoking rates have fallen to the lowest levels ever, federal health officials say. Among adult smokers, the smoking rate fell from 15.5 percent in 2016 to 14 percent in 2017. That rate was 67 percent lower than it was in 1965.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been going after e-cigarette makers for marketing that appeals to teens.

The surprise inspection at Juul's San Francisco headquarters last week occurred a few weeks after the FDA told e-cigarette makers they have 60 days to submit plans on how to reduce youth use of their products.

Sales of e-cigarettes known as Juuls rose from 2.2 million in 2016 to 16.2 million in 2017, according to the new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The survey involved nearly 20,700 middle and high school students from both public and private institutions. The goal was to gain fresh insight into vaping, which has been the most popular means for smoking among American youth since 2014.

More than 1,200 warning letters and fines have been sent to retailers and five major e-cigarette manufacturers who illegally sold Juul devices, which look like computer flash drives, and other e-cigarette products to minors.

Any Exercise Helps Beat Post-Smoking Pounds By Robert PreidtHealthDay Reporter WEDNESDAY, July 11, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- Fear of weight gain can keep many smokers from kicking the habit.But a new study involving older women might help change that: It found that for those who quit, even a bit of exercise helped keep the pounds at bay."Being active after quitting smoking was found to reduce weight gain, regardless of the amount of physical activity before quitting," Dr. JoAnn Pinkerton, executive director of the North American Menopause Society, said in a society news release.She pointed to the new

Fewer than 14 percent of American adults smoked cigarettes in 2017, the lowest level seen since data collection started in 1965, government health officials reported Tuesday.

These results provide further evidence that e-cigarettes are not necessarily a benign way to help quit smoking, said Dr. Benjamin Hirsh,  director of preventive cardiology at Northwell Health's Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y.

Cinnamaldehyde is the biochemical that gives cinnamon its distinctive flavor and smell, and it has been approved as a food additive by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The number of people who tried e-cigarettes grew by nearly 13 percent in 2014, 14 percent in 2015 and 15 percent in 2016, the researchers found.

Surveys show that many teens don't know about the dangers of these products, and a few popular vaping trends could increase the risks even more.

According to the groups, the FDA's decision to delay the review means that currently available e-cigarettes and cigars can continue to be sold without information about their health risks or any scientific evidence to support claims of public health benefits.

Tobacco use -- mainly cigarette smoking -- kills more than 480,000 Americans a year and costs nearly $300 billion a year in direct health care and lost productivity, the FDA noted.

After accounting for work-related noise exposure and other hearing loss risk factors, the investigators found that  smokers were 1.2 to 1.6 times more likely to suffer hearing loss than people who never smoked.

Menthol cigarettes are popular in the United States, accounting for about 30 percent of cigarette sales, versus 5 percent in Canada, according to Chaiton and his colleagues. Menthol cigarettes are popular in the United States, accounting for about 30 percent of cigarette sales, versus 5 percent in Canada.

States with strong firearm laws have overall lower rates of gun-related murder and suicide, according to the county-by-county analysis.

New York University researchers found that states with anti-tobacco regulations  -- such as smoke-free air laws and cigarette taxes -- had fewer vapers as well as fewer cigarette smokers.

The team found that e-liquid exposed to heating coils produced a vapor containing significant amounts of chromium, lead, manganese, nickel and zinc.

British researchers say lighting up just once a day was linked to a much higher risk of heart disease and stroke than might be expected.

Researchers found that compared with nonsmokers, those who smoke generally believe that any health problems -- from yellow teeth to lung cancer -- would strike later in life.