Archive for May, 2008

A case-control study of idiopathic, rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (IRD) was conducted to investigate potential risk factors for developing IRD. These included some factors reported previously, such as cardiovascular disease, and some not under suspicion, such as cigarette smoking and iris colour. Cases (n = 198) were incident cases of IRD who were hospitalized for...
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This study examines the possibility of a link between cigarette smoking and age-related maculopathy, a disease with no available medical treatment to prevent it, which is a leading cause of blindness in people aged 75 years or more. The authors examined this possible association in people aged 43 to 86 who participated in the...
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This paper evaluates the epidemiological evidence associating smoking with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Researchers conducted a systematic review of published epidemiological studies evaluated against established criteria for evidence of a causal relationship. In total, 17 studies (cross-sectional studies, prospective cohort studies, and case-control studies) were included. A total of 13 studies found a statistically...
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This cross-sectional survey used a structured interview to explore the level of knowledge of the link between smoking and eye disease and the likely impact of that knowledge among UK patients attending ophthalmic and other outpatient departments. Subjects were asked about their awareness of a link between smoking and four smoking-attributable conditions (lung cancer,...
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Smoking greatly increases the risk of vision loss due to age-related macular degeneration, and that risk hits both smokers and people who live with them, a new study shows. Macular degeneration is a progressive eye disease that is the leading cause of partial vision loss and blindness in the United States and many European countries. Reporting...
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What is the link between smoking and asthma? Smoke from cigars, cigarettes and pipes harms your body in many ways, but it is especially harmful to the respiratory system. The airways in a person with asthma are very sensitive and can react to many things, or “triggers.” Coming into contact with these triggers often produces...
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The condition is sometimes misdiagnosed in adults, although proper treatment could spare many bouts of coughing and wheezing. There’s been so much medical concern and media publicity about childhood asthma that you might think the disease is only a problem for children. But you’d be wrong. Although asthma usually begins in childhood, it’s very much...
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 If you have asthma, odds are that you’ll develop at least one other chronic health condition, such as heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, arthritis or cancer. New research from Australia suggests that, compared with non-asthmatics, people with asthma have a nearly twofold risk for developing any of these chronic conditions. The risk is even higher for...
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Simply moving to another room to smoke in the family home won’t do much to protect asthmatic children, a new study finds. In fact, asthmatic kids who live with smokers are 10 times less likely to be protected by any smoking ban in the home and car than children who live in homes with nonsmokers,...
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