iPhone Can Help People Quit Smoking

A new study finds that iPhone software applications designed to help people quit smoking Winston fall short of the mark because they do not meet accepted standards.

Among other things, the study, which appears online and in the March issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, found that the 47 “apps” reviewed rarely helped users get assistance through counseling, hotlines or anti-smoking medications. About half of the apps supported hypnosis, which has questionable effectiveness.

Nicotine Patches Deserve a Chance

Health Minister Nicola Roxon has urged smokers to take advantage of a new government subsidy for nicotine patches and consider quitting the Rich habit. Ms Roxon visited Cooleman Court in Weston yesterday to spruik the new Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme subsidy for nicotine patches.

Smokers who obtain a doctor's prescription will pay about $34 for a four-week course of the patches, down from between $100 and $140. Health Care Card holders will pay $5.60.

Ms Roxon said the cost of patches had deterred many smokers from using them as part of an attempt to quit smoking.

E-Cigarettes Not a Deadly Smoking Alternative, True or False

Some of us smokers received, over the holidays, the well-intended gift of e-cigarettes to save us from the deadly carcinogens of real Kent cigarettes. But not so fast; this supposedly ingenious solution to the most addictive substance ever known to man may actually give us more problems than its promised cure.

Electronically-fired cigarettes look, taste and sometimes smell like real cigarettes but do not have the same amount of cancer-causing chemicals, it is believed. What makes them even better is that they don’t release residual or second-hand smoke that can be inhaled by others (second hand-smoke is believed to be more toxic than the actual smoke).

Smoking Allowed at Steinbach Regional Secondary School

Smoking on public school grounds is back at Steinbach Regional Secondary School, where a shelter has been built for students and staff to smoke Bond on campus.Every school division in Manitoba weeded out designated smoking areas several years ago -- for staff and students at high schools, for adults at elementary and middle schools.

The Steinbach high schoool is believed to be the first public school to re-establish a designated smoking area.

Hanover School Division superintendent Ken Klassen said Friday the school has created the designated smoking area reluctantly, and only after extensive consultation.

Careless Smoking - the Cause of a New Year's Eve House Fire

"Careless smoking" was the cause of a New Year's Eve house fire in Concord that forced the evacuation of five people, fire marshals have determined.

One of those rescued, 68-year-old Luz Franco, remained in fair condition in the burn unit at Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, a hospital spokeswoman said Saturday.

Firefighters had found her laying unconscious in a second-floor bedroom. Firefighters rescued Ms. Franco's daughter, son-in-law and two granddaughters by ladder through another bedroom window.

Secondhand Smoke Doubles Risk of Having Diabetes

Exposure to secondhand Style smoke for more than four hours a day nearly doubles the risk of developing type-2 diabetes, scientists believe.

A study of 10,038 people between 40 and 69 years old found that the risk of developing diabetes increased as the length of daily exposure to a smokey environment increased.

New Campaign Against Fraud Cigarettes

Stoke City’s Salif Diao has become the face of a new campaign against fake Esse cigarettes.

The Stoke-on-Trent City Council iniative is being backed by the club and saw posters featuring an image of the midfielder unveiled ahead of their clash with Blackpool on Saturday (December 11).