Tobacco Smoke by Any Other Name Is Still as Deadly: Association of Pipe and Cigar Use With Cotinine Levels, Lung Function, and Airflow Obstruction

In a study of 3528 participants, 9% reported pipe smoking, 11% reported cigar smoking, and 52% reported cigarette smoking.

Self-reported current pipe and cigar smokers had elevated urine cotinine levels compared with never-smokers.

Participants who smoked pipes or cigars had increased odds of airflow obstruction.

Pipe and cigar smoking increased urine cotinine levels and was associated with decreased lung function and increased odds of airflow obstruction, even in participants who had never smoked cigarettes.

References:
http://www.annals.org/content/152/4/201.short
http://www.annals.org/content/152/4/259.short
Image source: Wikipedia, public domain.

Vehicle Exhaust = Second-hand Smoke?

From the NYTimes:

Exhaust from cars and trucks exacerbates asthma in children and may cause new respiratory illnesses and heart problems in adults, even resulting in deaths.

The meta-analysis included 700 peer-reviewed studies on varying aspects of motor vehicle emissions and health. It found “evidence of a causal relationship,” but not proof of one, between pollution from vehicles and impaired lung function and accelerated hardening of the arteries.

The study found that the biggest effects occurred among people who lived within 300 to 500 meters — about two-tenths to three-tenths of a mile — from highways and major roads. That applies to 30-40% of the population of North America.

“Like the issue of second-hand smoke, it’s very difficult to understand the exact mechanisms that make it bad — but it’s easy to understand that it is in fact bad.”

References:
Report Links Vehicle Exhaust to Health Problems. NYT, 2010.

Worldwide, 40% of children, 33% of male non-smokers, 35% of female non-smokers are exposed to second-hand smoke http://goo.gl/xFGef

Heavy traffic, Wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License.

Tobacco smoke is nothing too crazy video over-CDC

CDC: These TV commercials of 30 seconds provides vignettes of children when they are exposed to tobacco smoke. The narrator says that there is nothing passive smoking for the locomotive. It harms lung growth pain and lung function in children. To smoke your kids, it's as if you smoke.