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Loud Music Linked to Risky Behaviors

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 22 May 2012 15:36:05 CDT

Just like your parents always feared, listening to loud music may actually be bad for you. A new study finds that teens and young adults who use ear buds to listen to music at the "risky" level of 89 dBA for at least an hour each day were nearly twice...

Coming to New Zealand: $100 Packs of Cigarettes?

Evann Gastaldo — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 07:12:05 CDT

While the US has been trying to disgust smokers into giving up tobacco , New Zealand has been considering a more direct idea: raising the price of cigarettes to $100 a pack. The Ministry of Health wants a smoke-free NZ by 2025, and the $100 price tag—which would be implemented...

Smoking While Pregnant May Raise Autism Risk

Dustin Lushing — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:21:15 CDT

If any expectant mom needed yet more evidence that smoking is a bad idea, here it is: Doing so during pregnancy raises the risk of having a child with Asperger's or another kind of autism, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed data from about 630,000 kids born in the...

Menthol Cigarettes Double Stroke Risk

Matt Cantor — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:32:35 CDT

While researchers stress that there's "no 'good' cigarette type," they warn that menthols may be even worse than the rest. Menthol smokers face more than double the risk of stroke faced by non-menthol smokers; among women and non-blacks, it's more than triple the risk, a study suggests. Why? It's possible...

6M Dead From Tobacco Last Year

Dustin Lushing — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:23:29 CDT

Tobacco killed 6 million people worldwide last year and now ranks as the No. 1 cause of death in China, according to a report from the American Cancer Society and World Lung Federation. What's more, the groups say tobacco use may be responsible for 1 billion deaths this century if...

Judge: Graphic Smoking Images Are Unconstitutional

John Johnson — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:20:12 CST

Tobacco companies can't be forced to put ultra-graphic images on cigarette packages and advertising to scare away smokers, a federal judge ruled today. The FDA requirement, which was supposed to go into effect later this year, violates the companies' free-speech rights, declared US District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, reports...

Help Smokers Quit: Cut Packs to 10 Cigarettes

John Johnson — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:53:35 CST

The vast majority of smokers say they want to quit, and a Yale public health professor has a relatively simple suggestion: "It's time for the 10-cigarette pack," writes Jody Sindelar at CNN . Studies have shown that bigger portions of food result in people eating more, and the same principle applies...

Obama Calls Out Big Tobacco

Evann Gastaldo — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:22:16 CST

President Obama congratulated those who are making plans to quit smoking today as part of the Great American Smokeout, wryly acknowledging that “quitting smoking is hard—believe me, I know.” He also slammed Big Tobacco for attempting to block new cigarette warning labels “because they don’t want to be honest...

E-Cigs Work, But Have Smoking Foes Burning

Evann Gastaldo — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 13:29:49 CST

A recent experiment in Italy found that electronic cigarettes can help even hard-core smokers quit, boosting hopes that e-cigarettes could be a much better tool than more traditional products like nicotine patches and gum. So why are government officials and anti-smoking groups working to ban the device, which delivers a...