Recurrent Depression Linked to Poor Resiliency, Smoking

A new Canadian study discovers that previous depression, daily smoking and a lack of control over life circumstances are risk factors for repeat episodes of depression.

Depression is a common disorder and can be associated with weight and dietary control, pain and inattention to other health issues. According to the authors, about 65 percent of people with depression have repeat episodes.

In the study, researchers studied 585 adults from Statistics Canada’s National Population Health Survey who had suffered depression in 2000/01.

Of the patients, 65 percent were women with an average age of 38.5 years. Interestingly, 82 percent of the depressed individuals were in the middle- to high-income bracket.

More than half the patients had one or more episodes of depression in the following six years.

The researchers found that age, sex and income were not associated with future depressive episodes but that daily smoking and difficulty mastering life circumstances were associated with long-term depression.

Mastery is the sense that people have control over their lives and their circumstances. In this study, high levels of mastery appeared to be protective against further depression.

“History of depression is a well-known clinical indicator of future depressive episodes; however, smoking and mastery are more novel prognostic factors that are not well accounted for in current clinical practice,” said lead researcher Ian Colman, Ph.D.

“Future research should evaluate the benefits of including smoking cessation and mastery in existing clinical guidelines for the treatment of depression.”

Norway anti-smoking debate puffs along

Last week’s proposal, leaked by Dagsavisen before Minister of Health and Care Services Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen had even so much issued a statement, called for abolishing smoking in outside serving areas, educational and medical establishments, and entrances to public buildings.
The ‘smoke-free Norway’ minister’s measures add to an already restrictive practise of a ban on indoor smoking, tightened sales controls, and other proposals to further curb young peoples’ access to tobacco products.
Tobacco giant Philip Morris is suing the Norwegian state under EEA anti-competition laws.

Anti-smoker Dagfinn Høybråten, leader of the Christian Democrats (KrF) who successfully introduced current Norwegian legislation, agrees smoking should be banned to eliminate children being at risk from passive smoking. However, he kicks the threatened anti-smoking extension for going too far.
“The Tobacco Law applies indoors and not outside. I’m sceptical to banning smoking in outdoor serving areas. There is a choice to go inside, after all,” he said.
Accusing the nanny state of going too far, Conservative (H) MP Torbjørn Røe Isaksen, a former and now occasional party smoker, declared, “it must be okay, for example, to smoke in outside serving areas and people should display common good manners, but there are limits to what can be micromanaged.”
Social Democratic Party (SV) politicians announce, this week, they will not be supporting some the government’s proposals.
“We agree to sending these to Hearing, but have made it clear to the Minister of Health and Care Services [Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen that we cannot condone all of these measures, amongst others, banning smoking in homes for the elderly. Vetoing smoking for elderly people makes no sense,” says Geir-Ketil Hansen.

More organisations should ban smoking on their grounds

I refer to the letters by Ms Coral Ang, "The no-smoking path" (Oct 17), and Mr Muhammad Haziq Jani, "The no-smoking path is Utopia" (Oct 18).

Like Ms Ang, I am in favour of smoking being banned completely at certain public places. Perhaps Mr Muhammad Haziq has not heard of passive smoking. Just to breath in cigarette smoke from someone puffing away in close proximity is detrimental to one's health.

While denying work permits or citizenship to smokers may sound too extreme, it may help if there are more rules as to which places are okay for smoking. For example, should smoking while walking be allowed?

As an ex-student of SIM University, I was happy to read in its newsletter that smoking has been banned entirely in its campus.

Others should follow suit and lead by example, to prevent more people from suffering unwittingly from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, as many go undiagnosed. I would therefore agree that smoking requires more regulation.

Smoking Linked to Earlier Menopause

Women who smoke may hit menopause about a year earlier than those who don't light up, according to a study that also notes an earlier menopause may influence the risk of getting bone and heart diseases.
The study, which was carried in the journal Menopause, pooled data from several previous studies that included about 6,000 women in the United States, Poland, Turkey and Iran.
Non-smokers hit menopause between age 46 and 51, on average. But in all but two of the studies, smokers were younger when they hit menopause, between 43 and 50 overall.
During menopause, a woman's ovaries stop producing eggs and she can no longer get pregnant.
"Our results give further evidence that smoking is significantly associated with earlier (age at menopause) and provide yet another justification for women to avoid this habit," wrote study author Volodymyr Dvornyk, from the University of Hong Kong.
Dvornyk and his colleagues also analysed five other studies that used a cut-off age of 50 or 51 to group women into "early" and "late" menopause. Out of more than 43,000 women in that analysis, women who smoked were 43 percent more likely than nonsmokers to have early menopause.
Both early and late menopause have been linked to health risks. Women who hit menopause late, for instance, are thought to be at higher risk of breast cancer because one risk factor for the disease is more time exposed to estrogen.
"General consensus is that earlier menopause is likely to be associated with the larger number and higher risk of postmenopausal health problems, such as osteoporosis, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, obesity, Alzheimer's disease, and others," Dvornyk told Reuters Health in an email.
Overall, he added, early menopause is also thought to slightly raise a woman's risk of death in the years following.
There are two theories for why smoking might mean earlier menopause, said Jennie Kline, an epidemiologist from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York.
Smoking make have an effect on how women's bodies make, or get rid of, estrogen.
lternatively, some researchers believe certain components of cigarette smoke might kill eggs, added Kline, who was not involved in the study.
Dvornyk's team did not have information on how long women had been smoking or how many cigarettes they smoked each day, so his team could not determine how either of those factors may have affected age at menopause.
For that reason, and a lack of data on other health and lifestyle factors linked to menopause, the analysis may not be enough to resolve lingering questions on the link between smoking and menopause, they said.
Alcohol, weight and whether or not women have given birth may each also play a role in when they hit menopause, but the evidence for everything other than smoking has been mixed, Kline said.
It is also possible that the same factors that influence age at menopause may determine whether women have trouble with infertility or not, or how late they can get pregnant.
Still, Kline said, "There are way better reasons to stop smoking than worrying about menopause."

City official looking into smoking ban signs

Signs may soon be in place warning residents of a smoking ban at City of Bartlesville park facilities, according to interim Parks and Recreation Director Lisa Beeman.

An administrative policy to ban smoking within 50 feet of various city park facilities was approved by the Bartlesville Park Board in May.

Beeman said she has checked into getting signs and is going to be looking at the Parks and Recreation Department budget before ordering the signs.

"It's like 600, 700 dollars to get the signs done," Beeman said Monday. "But yes, there will be signs up and hopefully very soon."

The policy prohibits smoking within 50 feet around city-owned playgrounds, play courts, play fields and all bleachers and stands used by spectators at public events and within the fenced confines of a recreation facility or Doenges Memorial Park Stadium.

At the time of the policy's approval, smoking was already not permitted within the city's pool facilities or at the stadium.

Kids of smoking moms more likely to need mental health treatment

Need yet another reason to quit smoking? If you are pregnant, or thinking about getting pregnant, you know that cigarettes are incredibly harmful to your health and the health of your growing baby. Prenatal smoking has been linked to a host of physical ailments for babies such as delayed fetal growth, respiratory dysfunction and behavioral problems. But did you also know that smoking while pregnant can harm your child's mental health?

According to a new study, children born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy were more likely than those born to nonsmoking moms to take medications for mental disorders. The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology, compared the mental health diagnoses of 187,000 children born between 1987 and 1989 in Finland and considered their mothers' smoking habits during pregnancy.

Not only did the researchers find a connection between prenatal smoking and the child's mental health treatment, but they also found that the more a mother smoked, the more her children used medications. Kids who were exposed to more than 10 cigarettes per day in the womb required longer continuous use of medications to treat mental disorders. Higher cigarette exposure was also linked to an increased use of multiple drugs by the same individual.

The most common prescriptions were for antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs.

School district to vote on banning smoking on all school properties

It might soon be easier for people to pack heat at the Palm Beach County School District's headquarters than it will be to break open a pack of Parliament Light 100s.

The Palm Beach County School Board will vote on two proposed policy updates at Wednesday's school board meeting governing where firearms will be allowed on school district property and where people can smoke.

The new tobacco policy, which would take effect Jan. 1, would ban all smoking or use of other tobacco products by anyone, including parents and employees, anywhere on any district-owned property or school-sanctioned event. Currently district policy allows adults to smoke outdoors at school campuses and other district properties if they are at least 50 feet away from a building exit, said Dianne Howard, district director of risk and benefit management.

Legislators earlier this year amended a state law to allow a complete ban of smoking anywhere on school district property. At least one major public school district, Orange County Public Schools, has already enforced the new ban.

"We're hoping some employees will find it more difficult to smoke and really buckle down on quitting," Howard said.

Earlier this year, the district created a tobacco surcharge for employees charging them an extra $50 per month for health insurance if they did not sign an affidavit swearing they did not use tobacco. Howard said 1,500 employees either said they did smoke or never returned any affidavit and were thus considered tobacco users and charged the extra $50.

Howard said banning smoking anywhere on campus also sets a good example for students if they don't see adults smoking at school.

Tony Hernandez, executive director of the Classroom Teachers Association union that represents roughly 12,000 teachers in the district, said he had not received any complaints from employees about the proposed smoking ban. With smoking being banned at restaurants, parks and many public places, Hernandez said he is not surprised to see the district banning it on school property.

"That's the way things are headed," he said.

Audrey Silk, of the New York City-based Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment smoking rights group, said banning smoking even outdoors on college campus has started to become more common . She called the move part of an ongoing effort by anti-smoking groups to try to slowly try to outlaw smoking e.

"They've been working on this, and I give them credit for it, for over 30 years," Silk said. "This is the point in their incrementalism that they are up to. They've reached the outdoors now."

The firearms update, which would take effect immediately, simply makes the district's weapons policy match a new state law that took effect Oct. 1. That law says local governments cannot make laws on where firearms can be carried that are more restrictive than state laws.

Current district policy prohibits possessing firearms or having them in a car on any school district property. State law specifically allows banning guns on school buses, at any "schools" defined as elementary, middle, high schools or career centers and bans guns at school board meetings.

Weapons will still be banned from those areas under the new district policy, said Elizabeth McBride, the school district's senior counsel.

But McBride said that under state law, certain facilities such as the Fulton-Holland Education Services Center on Forest Hill Boulevard, where district administrative offices are housed, are not considered "schools" and the district does not have the right to ban firearms there - except for during school board meetings.

The City of West Palm Beach went through a similar debate recently when Mayor Jeri Muoio received criticism from gun rights activists after she tried to ban firearms from city hall. Muoio eventually changed her ruling and allowed people to carry firearms in city hall.