November 24th, 2009 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Research
No Comments »
Nicotine withdrawal symptoms typically peak in the first week of abstinence and return to normal at around 3-4 weeks. It has long been known that certain nicotinic receptors (particularly the beta-2 subtype) are closely involved in nicotine addiction, and that smokers have a larger number of nicotine receptors in their brains than non-smokers. When the smoker quits, this large number of vacant, unstimulated receptors is believed to be involved in the resulting craving and distressing withdrawal (irritability, restlessness, depression, anxiety, poor concentration etc).
Earlier this year, a study published by Drs Kelly Cosgrove, Julie Staley and colleagues at Yale University, provided evidence on the time course of normalization of these receptors after quitting smoking. Read more »
This post, Quitting Smoking? Your Nicotine receptors Take Over A Month To Normalize, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D..
November 6th, 2009 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips
No Comments »
Every now and again I like to pick one of the classic research studies on smoking cessation in order to highlight some of the key findings. Today I’m going to focus on the part of the Lung Health Study.
The Lung Health Study is certainly one of the best smoking cessation studies ever carried out, partly because of the comprehensive nature of the assessment and follow-up of its 5,887 participants and partly because it was way ahead of its time in delivering a truly “state-of-the-art” intensive smoking cessation intervention which was compared in a randomized manner to the effects of “usual care”. The Lung Health Study (LHS) was a randomized clinical trial of smoking cessation and inhaled bronchodilator therapy in smokers 35 to 60 years of age who did not consider themselves ill but had evidence of mild to moderate airway obstruction. Read more »
This post, Classic Smoking Cessation Study Suggests You Can Save A Life For $2000, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D..
October 28th, 2009 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News
No Comments »
I’m writing from the second conference on menthol and cigarettes, in Washington DC. This conference was organized to review the evidence on the effects of menthol in cigarettes and to discuss what further research is necessary and what actions should be taken.
To me, the presentations appeared to suggest that right now the evidence that menthol cigarettes are more harmful to health is weak. However, the evidence that menthol cigarettes are a starter product for youth and that menthol cigarettes can (under certain circumstances) be more addictive and harder to quit, is quite strong and getting stronger all the time. Read more »
This post, Menthol: Mounting Evidence That It Makes Smoking Cessation More Difficult, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D..
October 23rd, 2009 by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, News
No Comments »
Now that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the power to regulate tobacco products we will see more meaningful moves to reduce the harmfulness and addictiveness of tobacco, as well as to reduce its addictiveness to young people. However, we should also expect the tobacco industry to respond by trying to find loopholes that help it get around these regulatory moves.
The first example is the ban on added flavors to cigarettes (which currently excludes menthol flavor, i.e. it is not banned automatically). Recently I’ve noticed an increased promotion of flavored cigars, often being sold as singles, in bright colorful packaging. The current FDA flavor regulation doesn’t ban fruit, candy and other flavors in cigars or smokeless tobacco, just cigarettes. Read more »
This post, Big Tobacco Now Marketing Fruit Flavored Cigars To Youth, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D..
October 21st, 2009 by Nancy Brown, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, News
No Comments »
A recent survey commissioned by Hazeldon, a substance abuse treatment center, has inspired a campaign to start family conversations about alcohol. They call the campaign “Four Generations Overcoming Addiction,” and it encourages parents to talk with their children about their own alcohol use when they were teenagers.
The survey results from Ipsos Public Affairs are based on interviews done online with 603 teens between the ages of 15 and 18 and telephone interviews with 620 parents of teens. Some of the interesting results included: Read more »
This post, Talking To Teens About Drug Addiction, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..
