The Australian Medical Association (AMA) asked all smokers in Australia to gift their loved ones with the best Christmas gift ever this year: to stop smoking.

"Top of the list of gift ideas has got to be making a commitment to your family, and to yourself, to quit smoking in 2009," said AMA President, Dr Rosanna Capolingua.

She said, the report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare that revealed lung cancer is outstripping breast cancer as a killer of women emphasized the need for Australians to tackle this dangerous habit right now.

Dr Capolingua urged smokers to think about quitting as something not just for themselves but also for the important people in their lives.

"Smokers need to think about the consequences of their addiction - how it does and will impact on the people close to them.

"This is not just about the very real health risks of passive smoking, it’s about the example you set for those around you, particularly kids, and the worry you cause your loved ones by smoking.

"Smokers also need to seriously consider the risks to their own health and how this will impact on their family.

"Smoking is a death-sentence - you’re actively sacrificing years you could spend with your loved ones.

"By quitting, you will reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, blindness, sexual dysfunction and infertility to name just a few. Quitting is the best favor you can do yourself, and it is never too late or too early to quit.

"There is no better present to friends and family than making the commitment to be healthier, and live longer."

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Worldwide, more than 500,000 new cases of cancer of the mouth are diagnosed each year.

The majority of these cancers are found too late, causing many people to die within five years of finding out they have cancer. There exists much information addressing issues related to the patient who has undergone surgery or chemotherapy but little information related to early diagnosis and referral.

In a new article in the Journal of Prosthodontics, researchers led by Michael A. Siegel, DDS, MS, FDS, RCSEd, describe the epidemiology of oral cancer and the diagnostic tools currently available to prosthodontists to ensure that their patients are diagnosed at the earliest possible time.

The highest risk of developing oral cancer is in adults over 40 who use both tobacco and alcohol.

The majority of oral, head and neck cancer are initially diagnosed in a late stage, which has a five year prognosis of less than 50 percent. If these tumors are found in their earliest stage, the five year prognosis is 95 percent.

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This is crucially important information for women who are pregenant - and their smoking partners (the secondhand smoke). Find out why both should stop smoking at the first indication of a pregnancy.

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

In research that might have implications for human reproduction, U.S. and Chinese scientists have found that cigarette smoke damages mouse eggs and embryos.

The study was designed to examine whether cigarette smoke causes oxidative stress, cell death and dysfunction, and the shortening of telomeres (DNA at the ends of chromosomes that protect them from degradation). Two groups of female mice were exposed to cigarette smoke or cigarette smoke condensate for four weeks and compared to a control group of mice.

The mice exposed to cigarette smoke or the condensate were more likely than the unexposed mice to show increased fragmentation and delayed fertilization, resulting in impaired embryo development, the study found.

The fragmented eggs also showed oxidative stress, and embryos from mice exposed to cigarette smoke or condensate for four weeks before fertilization were more likely to contain dead cells and altered expression of the protein Oct4, which plays an important role in the formation of viable blastocysts (a stage of embryonic development).

The study was published in the November issue of the journal Fertility and Sterility.

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Reasons To Stop Smoking: Cancer #1 Killer By 2010, WHO Says

By 2010, cancer will be the leading killer in the world, surpassing heart disease, causing more deaths than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

Unless new treatments are found, there could be 27 million people with cancer by 2030, and 17 million cancer deaths annually. And, there could be 75 million people living with cancer within five years after diagnosis, according to a new report, 2008 World Cancer Report, released Tuesday by the World Health Organization.

Smoking is the major avoidable risk for cancer and cancer deaths around the world. Currently, some 1.3 billion people smoke. The true burden of cancers and deaths from smoking are yet to be seen.

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Reasons to Stop Smoking: Benefits Of Quitting Smoking

It helps to stop smoking, even if you’ve smoked for years.

Within days, your blood vessels will regain much of the normal function that is damaged by smoking. Within weeks, you’ll be able to taste food better, and your sense of smell will recover from tobacco’s assault. Within months, symptoms of chronic bronchitis ease up, and lung function improves within a year.

Quitting smoking reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke within two to five years. And the risk of lung cancer begins to drop substantially within five to nine years of quitting smoking.

People who kick the habit, regardless of age, live longer than those who continue to smoke. And since each pack of cigarettes costs our society $7.18, quitting smoking will help America’s budget as well as yours.

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Reasons to stop smoking: Smoking, drinking may cause throat, stomach cancer

Drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes appear to increase the risk of certain common throat and stomach cancers, Dutch researchers say.

The findings, presented at an American Association for Cancer Research meeting in Washington, underline other health recommendations for people to follow a healthy lifestyle.

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Another city in Los Angeles county says ‘Stop Smoking here’! After Santa Monica, Burbank, Calabasas, Thousand Oaks, Baldwin Park, and most recently Pasadena, Glendale now also has a strict citywide smoking ban - and it is effective immediately!

To protect people from secondhand smoke, smoking is prohibited in parks, all city property, publicly accessible private property, common areas of apartment complexes, hotel rooms, and outdoor dining patios (unless there is a 10-foot separation between smokers and non-smokers).

A task force to enforce these strategies will be formed, and repeat offenders will have to pay fines of up to $500.

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

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If you are a smoker in the Los Angeles area you may as well decide to quit smoking now - before the government will make that decision for you. Ignore this and find yourself paying up to $500 in fines:

After Thousand Oaks, Baldwin Park, and South Pasadena, the city of Pasadena is set to be the next place in Southern California that may enforce a smoking ban that will make it extremely hard to find a place in public to light up. The ordinance could take effect in 30 days.

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

The City Council voted Monday to enact a smoking ban that would put extensive restrictions on smoking outdoors in non-residential areas of the city.

The new rules will prohibit smoking in outdoor shopping and dining areas, in ATM and movie ticket lines, within 20 feet of building entrances and at outdoor events like the Rose Parade. That would make it nearly impossible to smoke in Old Pasadena, and other commercial districts of the city.

Violators would be fined $100 for a first offense, $200 for a second and $500 for third or subsequent violations, according to staff reports. Smoking in parks is already prohibited in the city.

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Everyone knows that smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer. However, few pot smokers realize that they are equally, if not more, at risk for the deadly disease, as cigarette smokers are.

Cannabis contains twice the amount of carcinogens that cigarettes do, it’s smoked without a filter, pot smokers actually hold the smoke in to enhance the effect of the drug (which in turn causes more lung damage), and they usually smoke their joint all the way down to the end…

Here is what researchers of the Medical Reasearch Institute of New Zealand have concluded.

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

The researchers found that smoking one joint is equivalent to 20 cigarettes in terms of lung cancer.

While studies in the past have shown that marijuana can cause cancer, few have actually established a strong link between marijuana use and the actual incidence of lung cancer.

For the study, researchers interviewed 79 lung cancer patients in an effort identify the main risk factors for the disease, such as smoking, family history and occupation. The patients were questioned about alcohol and marijuana consumption.

In the high-exposure group, lung cancer risk rose by 5.7 times for patients who smoked more than a joint a day for 10 years, or two joints a day for 5 years, after adjusting for other variables, including cigarette smoking.

"Cannabis smokers end up with five times more carbon monoxide in their bloodstream (than tobacco smokers)," team leader Richard Beasley, at the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, said in a news release.

The scientists also noted that marijuana could be expected to harm the airways more than tobacco since its smoke contained twice the level of carcinogens, such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons, compared with tobacco cigarettes.

"There are higher concentrations of carcinogens in cannabis smoke…what is intriguing to us is there is so little work done on cannabis when there is so much done on tobacco,” said Beasley.

"In the near future we may see an ‘epidemic’ of lung cancers connected with this new carcinogen. And the future risk probably applies to many other countries, where increasing use of cannabis among young adults and adolescents is becoming a major public health problem,” he added.

Study results appear in the in the European Respiratory Journal.

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