Liquid Nicotine in E-Cigarettes Rising Cause of Poisonings: CDC

By Steven Reinberg

The number of calls to poison control centers for nicotine poisoning from e-cigarettes has risen dramatically in recent years, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

Calls related to poisoning from the liquid nicotine used in these devices were running at a rate of roughly one a month in 2010, but jumped to 215 in February of this year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Autoimmune disease link to lipid defect suggests new therapeutic strategy

Collaborative work between the Glycobiology Institute and researchers at University College and Imperial College in London has identified a molecular defect in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) that could have an impact on their treatment.

 

The Co-Villains Behind Obesity’s Rise

By SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN

Waltraud Grubitzsch/European Pressphoto Agency

Researchers have compared tissue samples from obese mice with those of normal mice to try to determine which behavioral or biological factors might cause humans to gain weight. Here, a 2012 experiment in Leipzig, Germany.

Why is obesity soaring? The answer seems pretty clear. In 1955, a standard soda at McDonald’s was only seven ounces. Today, a medium is three times as large, and even a child’s-size version is 12 ounces. It’s a widely held view that obesity is a consequence of our behaviors, and that behavioral economics thus plays a central role in understanding it — with markets, preferences and choices taking center stage. As a behavioral economist, I subscribed to that view — until recently, when I began to question my thinking.

Cutting Cigarette Scenes From TV Shows May Have Helped Reduce Smoking

Scenes of cigarette use have become less common on prime-time television shows, and it may be linked to reduced smoking rates in the United States, a new study suggests.

Researchers from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia looked at cigarette use depicted in more than 1,800 hours of popular U.S. prime-time dramas broadcast between 1955 and 2010. They also looked at smoking rates among adults during that period.

Scenes involving cigarette use on such shows fell from nearly five scenes per hour of programming (excluding commercials) in 1961 to about 0.3 scenes per hour in 2010, according to the study published online April 3 in the journal Tobacco Control.

Insomnia May Raise Stroke Risk, Especially for Younger Adults

By Dennis Thompson
People plagued with insomnia might have an increased risk of stroke, particularly if they are young adults, a new, large study from Taiwan suggests.

Over the course of four years, researchers found that insomnia seemed to raise the likelihood that a person will be hospitalized due to stroke by 54 percent.
That risk skyrocketed for people between the ages of 18 and 34, who were eight times more likely to suffer strokes if they had insomnia when compared to their peers who got good sleep, the study found.