News by Subject Social & Behavior

An inexpensive program to help surgery patients get physically and mentally ready for their upcoming operation may help reduce overall costs and get them home faster, according to new research involving hundreds of patients in 21 hospitals.

Current policies that include restrictions on the sale of menthol flavored tobacco and nicotine products are less likely to reach those that would benefit from them the most, according to new research from the University of Kentucky's College of Medicine.

Diagnosing EVALI--the e-cigarette, or vaping, product use associated lung injury illness that's recently garnered national attention--can be challenging. Initial symptoms may resemble pneumonia or go unrecognized, according to case analysis in the Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians (JACEP) Open, a new open access journal.

What drives a person to smoke cigarettes? What role do emotions play in this addictive behavior? Why do some smokers puff more often and more deeply or relapse many years after they've quit? If policy makers had those answers, how could they strengthen the fight against the global smoking epidemic? A new report by researchers based at Harvard University offers a key insight: sadness plays an especially strong role in triggering addictive behavior relative to other negative emotions like disgust.

The frequently cited claim that e-cigarettes are '95% less risky' or '95% less harmful' than combustible cigarettes is outdated, misleading and invalid -- and should no longer be made in discussions on the dangers of vaping, according to an editorial published today in the American Journal of Public Health by six leading experts on e-cigarettes and public health.

E-cigarette use is rising, particularly among young adults and teens. Recent illnesses and deaths attributed to vaping have caused intense scrutiny of the chemicals in e-liquids and vapor, but little is known about the size of vaping particles and their deposition patterns in human airways. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Chemical Research in Toxicology have analyzed how e-cigarette particle size and deposition change with factors such as device power, e-liquid composition and vaping practices.

New research in JNCCN -- Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, using data from NHIS to examine self-reported drinking habits among people reporting a cancer diagnosis, finds 56.5% were current drinkers, 34.9% exceeded moderate drinking levels, and 21% engaged in binge drinking.

The researchers found that students who smoked had rates of clinical depression that were twice to three times higher than did their non-smoking peers.

People who practice healthy habits at age 50 lived more years free of chronic diseases compared to those who did not practice any of these habits. Women who practiced all five habits gained about ten years of disease-free life, and men who did so gained about eight years. A healthy lifestyle not only improves lifespan (overall life expectancy) but also healthspan (healthy or disease-free life expectancy).

The way consumers use vapor and tobacco heating products (THPs) can affect the levels of harmful and potentially harmful constituents they are exposed to, and a new study has analysed how the use of these products compares with cigarette smoking.