Despite earlier reports to the contrary, nicotine patches do not increase the risk for heart attack. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center compared 2,990 control subjects and 635 recent first-time sufferers of heart attacks from 68 hospitals in the Philadelphia region to study the use of nicotine patches. Their report is published in the April edition of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology . We are making a special effort to attract Spanish-speaking smokers who use the web.
Passive smoking is a major cause of respiratory illness among children.
But the research showed that the more heavily parents smoked, the less likely were they to make an appointment for asthma for their children. Over 400 asthmatic children aged two to 12 with a parent who smoked were studied. Health service contacts for asthma, taken from GP case records in 73 practices, were assessed. The effects of passive smoking were measured by levels of a tobacco by-product, cotinine, in the children's spit. The results showed that when parents perceived their child's asthma to be severe, they were likely to make more visits.