Calling all smokers..

[Rick Huggins]

Well, that's one week down and going strong

Happy bunny

[will]

Nice one.....keep one good reason in your mind for packing in and remind yourself often. I've been 2 months now and it's getting easier although I am now convinced that if you don't 100% want to pack in, don't even try, the misery isn't worth it.

[Crisspy Fiver]

there is no missery with Alan Carr.

jamie

[Phil Ennis]

Ten months to the day!



Very occasional twinge, usually involving alcohol but it has been worth it. Just need to get back on my bike and get some weight off.

[Mr T.]

Wonder pill cuts obesity and smoking
By Celia Hall, Medical Editor in Munich
(Filed: 30/08/2004)


A once-a-day pill that helps people to lose weight and stop smoking could be available within two years, scientists said yesterday.

The drug, rimonabant, works on a newly-discovered system in the brain which is involved in motivation and the control of appetite as well as the urge to smoke.

Latest results of a year-long study, issued at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Munich yesterday, show that 40 to 45 per cent of overweight and obese people in the trial lost 10 per cent of their weight.

The drug also reduced harmful blood fats and the metabolic syndrome which leads to diabetes. Being overweight, smoking and diabetes are all factors in heart disease.

The drug, which will be sold under the trade name Acomplia, works on the endocannabinoid system in the brain, which researchers believe plays a vital role in how the body regulates appetite.

That line of research began when scientists noted that people who smoked cannabis often experienced sharp increases in appetite.

The researchers found that when the endocannabinoid system was over-activated, appetite and the desire to smoke increased. Eating too much stimulated that reaction, which in turn increased the body's desire to eat more.

The drug blocks receptors in the endocannabinoid system, working both on cells in the brain and on fat cells.

It appears to restore balance in the body, reducing the need to go on eating when the body is already nourished.

The results from the European study of 1,500 people found that those on a 20mg dose lost 6.6 kilos in a year; those on 5mg lost 3.4 kilos; and those on a placebo lost 1.8 kilos. All the people in the trial followed a diet reducing their calories by 600 a day and were advised to take exercise.

Across the world, 13,000 people are involved in seven rimonabant trials which are looking at its effect on weight, smoking and diabetes.

Dr Nick Finer, an honorary consultant in obesity medicine at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, is the leading researcher in the diabetes trial and a member of the international steering committee on rimonabant.

He said: "It is entirely appropriate for this drug to be presented to a meeting of cardiologists.

"The trial has validated this newly-discovered brain system as an important target in weight reduction and smoking, which are both important risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

"It is also changing the attitude of clinicians in how we look at overweight and obese people. Management of obesity is difficult both for doctors and patients. We need all the help we can get.

"We have drugs for reducing high blood pressure and cholesterol but we are lousy at helping people to lose weight."

Dr Finer said he thought the drug, made by Sanofi-Synthelabo, would be useful in the first place for people who ran a high risk of heart disease or strokes and who had not succeeded with diet alone.

"It is not true to say that people who are obese have no will power," he said. "My patients have plenty of will power. They have lost 10 times more weight than other people but they cannot keep it off."

Dr Finer said that reducing weight meant reducing heart disease and diabetes, which had cost benefits to the National Health Service as well as health benefits for the individual.

"I do not think this drug will be some kind of short-term fix, the type of thing you do before you go on holiday," he said.

"It is like cholesterol and blood pressure pills; it is the kind of drug that people might be taking long-term."


************************************************** ********

A Balance of Good Health - Letters tot he Editor

SIR - If smokers just smoked (Opinion, Aug 25), life would be simple, but apart from smoking they have atrocious lifestyles.

They are more stressed and take less exercise than non-smokers; a meta-analysis of more than 50 studies showed that on average they have a higher intake of saturated fat and cholesterol, and lower intakes of beta carotene, vitamins C and E, folate and fibre than non-smokers.

Dietary factors have been shown to strongly affect the risk of heart disease and cancer. It is smoking combined with an unhealthy lifestyle that causes many smokers' diseases. I have yet to see a paper showing that non-smokers live longer than smokers with an otherwise healthy lifestyle.

Apart from the unquestionably strong link (irrespective of lifestyle) between smoking and lung cancer, smoking protects against Parkinson's disease, cancer of the womb, post-menopausal breast cancer, ulcerative colitis, pre-eclampsia and, to a lesser extent, Alzheimer's.

Should people (and their loved ones) not have the right to choose between a quick death from lung cancer (and become less of a burden to the NHS) or a slow death from Parkinson's disease?

In recent years, the oldest woman in the world was Jeanne Calment in France who died aged 122. Her physicians persuaded her to quit smoking at 117. Was her longevity due to a Mediterranean diet and her two glasses of wine a day?

The oldest man was a Cambodian who lived to 114 and smoked until the day he died. Was it the lack of saturated fat and the high vegetable intake in his diet? The hard fact is that they both smoked.

Obesity, if unchecked, will kill far more people than smoking accompanied by a healthy lifestyle ever did.

From:
Dr K. W. E. Denson, Thame Thrombosis and Haemostasis Research Foundation, Thame, Oxon