Home

  • Home
    • » e-Newsletters

Asians in California smoke at higher rates than others

Respiratory Care Weekly, September 15, 2005

1. Asians in California smoke at higher rates than others

A study published by the University of California's Davis Cancer Center shows that Asians in the state smoke at much higher rates than those in the rest of the country.

More than one in four Korean men smokes, which is 46% higher than California men overall. In addition, Korean and Chinese women smoke at higher rates the longer they live in the United States, and Korean and Chinese children are more likely than other California children to be exposed to secondhand smoke at home.

"Our anti-tobacco efforts need to continue as California's new immigrants are targeted by the tobacco industry with the image that tobacco use is the essence of the 'Western' lifestyle," said Moon S. Chen, Jr, associate director of Cancer Disparities and Research at the UC Davis Cancer Center and principal investigator of the Korean and Chinese tobacco-use studies. "California needs to continue to show that living healthy and tobacco-free is the real Western lifestyle."

2. Researchers explore role of endotoxins in asthma attacks

It's not how much dust mite endotoxins an asthmatic breathes that trigger an attack, according to a study in the online edition of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine this month.

Other factors, such as how recently the last attack occurred and each person's genetic makeup, influence the severity of symptoms. Researchers from National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences collected more then 2,500 dust samples from 831 U.S. homes, part of a series of studies designed to help develop new treatment regimes.

3. Government compromise on smoking-cessation funds 'tragic'

The government's expert tobacco-cessation witness in the Department of Justice trial examines the health impact of the department's compromise during its suit against the tobacco companies five years ago in the September 8 New England Journal of Medicine.

The department originally asked for $130 billion from the tobacco companies to be spent on cessation efforts over a 25-year span, which it later reduced to $10 billion over five years.

"Spending $5 billion a year on tobacco cessation for 25 years would profoundly improve the health of Americans," Michael Fiore, MD, says. "This is why it is such a tragedy that the Justice Department backed away from [its] original cessation remedy. Can you imagine what would happen if, as we projected with this plan, one million smokers quit each year-33 million over time?"

Most Popular