Student smokers and chew-tobacco users will likely rethink their habits after a dramatic presentation Monday by a young man who bears the scars of mouth cancer on his face and in his heart.
That’s the opinion of Athens District High School Prime Minister Myranda Morrison and Speaker Taylor Spyk after the hour-long presentation by celebrated speaker Gruen von Behrens.
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A new report issued Friday by a local health care organization shows a rise in smoking among teens in upstate New York, mirroring a nationwide trend. Meanwhile, trends that once showed a decline in adult smoking rates have begun to level off.
“This is a disturbing set of findings because of its implications for the future,” said Dr. Robert Holzhauer, vice president and chief medical officer for Univera Healthcare, which prepared a fact sheet on cigarette smoking in New York. Ream more »
Area kids are joining the fight against smoking and unhealthy lifestyles.
The Gifts Coalition in Lynchburg organized Kick Butts Day and held it at E.C. Glass Wednesday.
Organizers say it celebrates youth activism and tells tobacco companies they need to stop targeting kids with their ads.
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Every year, 6,600 teens in Louisiana start smoking. And one of every four students in high school is a regular smoker.
Now the doctors who care for seriously sick smokers are doing something about it.
Why would doctors bring young teenage girls to the morgue to see jars of organs, and to a heart cath lab to see a choked off blood vessel in a woman who smoked? Well, it all started in a classroom at Chabert Medical Center in Houma, where a lung doctor and tobacco educator are serious about how crippling and deadly smoking is. Ream more »
Children born to women who smoked during pregnancy have an increased risk of smoking, due to prenatal nicotine exposure, researchers in Finland and Russia say.
Researchers conducting a joint Finnish-Russian project of the University of Helsinki, the Saint Petersburg Pavlov Medical University in Russia and Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bio-organic Chemistry in Moscow, say their findings support the hypothesis that teens with prenatal nicotine exposure are more likely to start smoking earlier than their peers. Ream more »
Trends that showed declining upstate New York adult smoking rates are leveling off, while the percentage of high school smokers statewide is on the rise, according to a report issued last week by Excellus BlueCross BlueShield.
“This is a disturbing set of findings because of its implications for the future,” said Robert J. Holzhauer, vice president and chief medical officer for Excellus BCBS. Ream more »
While studies have linked cigarette smoking to deficits in attention and memory in adults, UCLA researchers wanted to compare brain function in adolescent smokers and non-smokers, with a focus on the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that guides “executive functions” like decision-making and that is still developing structurally and functionally in adolescents. Ream more »
A day of skipping class ended in some arrests for a group of Moody High School students who were busted by police Monday afternoon. Police swarmed a neighborhood near the school after five teens ran from cops.
Five teenagers were seen hanging out in a vacant house and as police approached, the kids scattered. That’s when the officers called for backup.
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A state senator wants to keep electronic cigarettes out of kids’ hands by making it a petty offense for merchants to sell them to minors and for minors to buy them.
“If we’re going to say minors can’t buy regular cigarettes, it doesn’t seem valid to say they can have access to electronic cigarettes,” said Sen. Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler. “Hopefully a few less young people will suffer nicotine addictions with this ban.” Ream more »
Science journalist Gary Taubes rejects the mainstream medical assertion that overeating causes obesity. In his convincing new book “Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It,” Taubes argues, with careful citations of scientific studies, that sugars and refined carbohydrates are to blame. Ream more »