Winter Fire Safety

Winter Fire Safety.
Although many clan enjoy gathering around a fire during raw winter months, fires that aren't built properly can affect air quality and people's health, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Smoke coming out of the chimney is one put one's signature on that a holocaust isn't burning efficiently. Smoke from wood contains fine particles, known as penalty particle pollution. These particles can injure the lungs, blood vessels and the heart. Children, older tribe and those with heart and lung disease are at greatest risk from fine suspicion pollution, according to the EPA.

EPA tips for building a cleaner-burning fire include: Only use dry, established wood. These logs will make a hollow sound when you strike them together. Avoid excited wet or green logs that create extra smoke, and waste fuel. Check the moisture. The moisture delighted of wood should be less than 20 percent. Wood moisture meters are elbow at home-improvement stores so wood can be tested before it's burned. They may cost as little as $20 or less, according to the EPA.

Passive Smoking Increases The Risk Of Sinusitis

Passive Smoking Increases The Risk Of Sinusitis.
Exposure to secondhand smoke appears to c verily collect the risk for chronic sinusitis, a new Canadian muse about has found. In fact, it might explain 40 percent of the cases of the condition, said reflect on author Dr C Martin Tammemagi, a researcher at Brock University in Ontario. "The numbers surprised me somewhat. My communal impression was that public health agencies were strongly discouraging smoking and controlling secondhand smoke, and that governments in pari passu were passing protective legislation to crop peoples' exposure to secondhand smoke".

But his team found that more than 90 percent of those in the study who had hardened sinusitis and more than 84 percent of the comparison group, which did not have the condition, were exposed to secondhand smoke in influential places. "To see that exposure to secondhand smoke was still common did surprise and alarm me".

The spite effects of secondhand smoke have been well-documented, and experts know it contains more than 4,000 substances, including 50 or more known or suspected carcinogens and many aggressive irritants, according to Tammemagi. The coupling between secondhand smoke and sinusitis, however, has been little studied. "To date, there have not been any high-quality studies that have looked at this carefully" and then estimated the post that smoke plays in the sinus problem.

In their study, the researchers evaluated reports of secondhand smoke publication in 306 nonsmokers who had chronic rhinosinusitis, defined as sore of the nose or sinuses lasting 12 weeks or longer. The sinuses are cavities within the cheek bones, around the eyes and behind the nose that moisten and gauze air within the nasal cavity.

The researchers asked the participants about their communication to secondhand smoke for the five years before their diagnosis and then compared the responses with those of 306 kinsfolk of similar age, sex and race who did not have the sinus problem. Those with sinusitis were more reasonable than the comparison group to have been exposed to secondhand smoke not only in public places but at home, manage and private social functions, such as weddings, the researchers found.

Smoking Increases The Risk Of Stillbirth

Smoking Increases The Risk Of Stillbirth.
Expectant mothers who smoke marijuana may triple their imperil for a stillbirth, a redone study suggests. The risk is also increased by smoking cigarettes, using other rightful and illegal drugs and being exposed to secondhand smoke. Stillbirth chance is heightened whether moms are exposed to pot alone or in combination with other substances, the study authors added. They found that 94 percent of mothers who had stillborn infants old one or more of these substances.

And "Even when findings are controlled for cigarette smoking, marijuana use is associated with an increased peril of stillbirth," said engender researcher Dr Michael Varner, associate director of women's health, obstetrics and gynecology at University of Utah School of Medicine. Stillbirth refers to fetal liquidation after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Among drugs, signs of marijuana use was most often found in umbilical twine blood from stillborn infants.

So "Because marijuana use may be increasing with increased legalization, the suitability of these findings may increase as well". Indeed, this seems probable as the push to legalize marijuana has gained momentum. Colorado and Washington condition voted for legalization of marijuana and states including California, Connecticut, Maine, Nevada and Oregon are legalizing its medical use.

In addition, these and other states, including New York and Ohio, are decriminalizing its use. "Both obstetric mind providers and the apparent should be aware of the associations between both cigarette smoking, including flexible exposure, and recreational/illicit drug use, and stillbirth". Although the numbers were smaller for direction narcotics, there appears to be an association between exposure to these drugs and stillbirth as well.

While the study Dec 2013 found an link between use of marijuana, other drugs and tobacco by pregnant women and higher risk of stillbirth, it did not confirm a cause-and-effect relationship. The report appears in the January issue of Obstetrics andamp; Gynecology. Study major author Dr Uma Reddy, a medical officer at the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said the intelligence why marijuana may growth the risk for stillbirths isn't clear.

Passive Smoking Of Children Is Possible Through General Ventilation

Passive Smoking Of Children Is Possible Through General Ventilation.
Children who subsist in smoke-free apartments but have neighbors who not weighty up suffer from exposure to smoke that seeps through walls or shared ventilation systems, changed research shows. Compared to kids who stay in detached homes, apartment-dwelling children have 45 percent more cotinine, a marker of tobacco exposure, in their blood, according to a investigation published in the January issue of Pediatrics. Although this study didn't aspect at whether the health of the children was compromised, previous studies have shown physiologic changes, including cognitive disruption, with increased levels of cotinine, even at the lowest levels of exposure, said cram author Dr Karen Wilson.

And "We over that this research supports the efforts of people who have already been moving in the direction of banning smoking in multi-unit housing in their own communities," added Wilson, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Golisano Children's Hospital at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. Vince Willmore, badness president of communications at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, agreed. "This examine demonstrates the consequence of implementing smoke-free policies in multi-unit housing and of parents adopting smoke-free policies in all homes". Since smoke doesn't deferral in one place, Willmore said only sweeping smoke-free policies provide effective protection.

The authors analyzed data from a country-wide survey of 5002 children between 6 and 18 years old who lived in nonsmoking homes. The children lived in objective houses, attached homes and apartments, which allowed the researchers to glimpse if cotinine levels varied by types of housing. About three-quarters of children living in any style of housing had been exposed to secondhand smoke, but apartment dwellers had 45 percent more cotinine in their blood than residents of isolated houses. For white apartment residents, the difference was even more startling: a 212 percent burgeon vs 46 percent in blacks and no increase in other races or ethnicities.

But a notable limitation of the study is that the authors couldn't separate other potential sources of exposure, such as progenitors members who only smoked outside but might carry particles indoors on their clothes. Nor did it take into tale day-care centers or other forms of child care that might contribute to smoke exposure.

Even Smoking One Cigarette Per Day Significantly Worsens Health

Even Smoking One Cigarette Per Day Significantly Worsens Health.
As infinitesimal as one cigarette a day, or even just inhaling smoke from someone else's cigarette, could be enough to cause a kindliness corrosion and even death, warns a report released Thursday by US Surgeon General Dr Regina M Benjamin. "The chemicals in tobacco smoke capacity your lungs at every time you inhale, causing damage immediately," Benjamin said in a statement. "Inhaling even the smallest expanse of tobacco smoke can also damage your DNA, which can lead to cancer".

And the more you're exposed, the harder it is for your body to renovation the damage. Smoking also weakens the immune system and makes it harder for the body to respond to therapy if a smoking-linked cancer does arise. "It's a really good thing when the Surgeon General comes out and gives a large scope to the dangers of smoking," said Dr Len Horovitz, a pulmonary master with Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "They're looking at very small amounts of smoke and this is dramatic. It's showing the effectiveness is immediate and doesn't take very much concentration. In other words, there's no right level of smoking. It's a zero-tolerance issue".

A Report of the Surgeon General: How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease - The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease, is the start tobacco set forth from Surgeon General Benjamin and the 30th since the watershed 1964 Surgeon General's report that first linked smoking to lung cancer. More so than aforementioned reports, this one focused on specific pathways by which smoking does its damage.

Some 70 of the 7000 chemicals and compounds in cigarettes can cause cancer, while hundreds of the others are toxic, inflaming the lining of the airways and potentially prime to inveterate obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a major killer in the United States. The chemicals also corrode blood vessels and advance the likelihood of blood clots, upping the jeopardy for heart conditions.

Smoking is responsible for about 85 percent of lung cancers in the United States. But this publicize puts more emphasis on the link between smoking and the nation's #1 killer, magnanimity disease.

Health Hazards Of Smoke From Forest Fires

Health Hazards Of Smoke From Forest Fires.
With record-breaking wildfires boiling the American Southwest, experts are distressed not just about the environmental and property damage, but also about robustness risks both to nearby residents and to those living farther away. Although at this point reports are anecdotal, bodies on the front lines of health care in the Southwest are noticing an uptick of respiratory problems centre of certain groups of people. The Gallup Indian Medical Center, which sits on the edging of the Navajo Reservation in western New Mexico, is seeing a lot of asthma-related complaints, said Heidi Krapfl, key of the environmental health epidemiology bureau at the New Mexico Department of Health in Santa Fe.

Similar problems are being seen in more standoffish parts of the state. "We've definitely seen patients in the predicament room who have come in with a worsening of their chronic lung disease like asthma or COPD habitual obstructive pulmonary disease that they've attributed to the smoke," said Dr Mike Richards, most important of emergency medicine at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque. As of Wednesday afternoon, solid wildfires were raging uncontained in southeast Arizona and along the state's border with Mexico; along the eastern crawl of New Mexico; in multiple locations throughout Texas and along the Texas-Louisiana border, according to the US Forest Service.

For weeks now, Albuquerque has been on the receiving end of mammoth banks of smoke and ash from the Wallow bombardment 200 or so miles away. Smoke and ash have turned the setting Ra red, reduced driving visibility and obscured normally crystal clear views of the 11000-foot mountains edging Albuquerque's eastern perimeters. On some days, the stink of burning is overwhelming.

Jo Jordan, a 20-year living of Albuquerque, attributes a rare migraine to smoke blowing in from the southeast. "I was out and the smoke was just hanging in the air. My throat got raspy and I started with a headache. By the leisure I got home, I had a migraine," she related. "I had it for a day and a half.

Passive Smoking May Cause Illness Of The Cardiovascular System

Passive Smoking May Cause Illness Of The Cardiovascular System.
The more you're exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke, the more conceivable you are to grow early signs of sincerity disease, a new study indicates. The findings suggest that exposure to secondhand smoke may be more harmful than previously thought, according to the researchers. For the study, the investigators looked at nearly 3100 salubrious people, aged 40 to 80, who had never smoked and found that 26 percent of those exposed to varying levels of secondhand smoke - as an full-grown or child, at work or at home - had signs of coronary artery calcification, compared to 18,5 percent of the loose population. Those who reported higher levels of secondhand smoke experience had the greatest evidence of calcification, a build-up of calcium in the artery walls.

After irresistible other heart risk factors into account, the researchers concluded that people exposed to low, middling or high levels of secondhand smoke were 50, 60 and 90 percent, respectively, more like as not to have evidence of calcification than those who had minimal exposure. The health effects of secondhand smoke on coronary artery calcification remained whether the orientation was during childhood or adulthood, the results showed.

The analysis findings are scheduled for presentation Thursday at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology (ACC), in San Francisco. "This scrutinize provides additional evidence that secondhand smoke is noxious and may be even more dangerous than we previously thought," study author Dr Harvey Hecht, affiliate director of cardiac imaging and professor of medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, said in an ACC dispatch release.