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** 15 August 2023
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** UK
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** Bermondsey woman whose dad smoked on deathbed calls for increase in tobacco sale age (#1)
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** How quitting smoking can boost your health and finances – as Government considers adding messages to cigarette packs (#3)
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** Weight-loss apps to offer NHS help to obese (#2)
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** UK
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** Bermondsey woman whose dad smoked on deathbed calls for increase in tobacco sale age

A Bermondsey woman whose dad smoked on his deathbed has called on the government to consider raising the legal age for buying tobacco.

Deborah Peñate Gómez, 29, wants people to sign a Cancer Research UK petition calling on the government to introduce a range of policies tackling smoking – London’s biggest killer.

In a heart-wrenching account, she recalled losing her dad Juan Pedro to lung cancer when she was just eighteen. He was also father to two sons, aged fifteen and seven.

He was diagnosed with lung cancer in the summer of 2012 and died later that year aged just 49.

Now Deborah is urging people to back an anti-smoking campaign which puts forward numerous policy initiatives.

It comes after analysis by Cancer Research UK estimated that tobacco causes the death of one person in London every hour.

The charity is urging the Prime Minister to set up a ‘Smokefree Fund’ to pay for vital interventions, like stop-smoking services and public health campaigns.

Cancer Research UK also says the tobacco industry should be made to foot the bill for the damage it causes – not taxpayers.

It also says the government should consider raising the age of sale of tobacco by one year, every year – a measure already committed to in New Zealand – as a way to prevent future generations smoking.

Source: Southwark News, 13 August 2023

See also: Cancer Research UK Petition: Help tackle the biggest cause of cancer ([link removed])
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** How quitting smoking can boost your health and finances – as Government considers adding messages to cigarette packs

Messages encouraging smokers to quit could be added to cigarette packs.

The Department of Health hopes the inserts – which have already been used in other countries including Canada and Israel, with Australia also planning to introduce them – could lead to an additional 30,000 smokers giving up, saving up to £1.6 billion in health costs.

In the meantime, it’s always a good time to try and stop smoking, and focusing on the positive outcomes can help you stay on track too. Here are some of the financial and health benefits of quitting smoking…

Smoking costs around £17.3 billion a year across England overall, according to the latest 2023 economic data analysis commissioned by public health charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). This includes a significant cost to the NHS and social care, with smoking-related admissions and primary treatments reportedly costing £1.9 billion yearly.

According to Everyone Health, if you get through 20 cigarettes a day, with a packet of cigarettes costing £13.30, that’s a spend of £93.10 per week, or £4,841.20 per year. The average smoker may smoke a bit less than that per day, but this could still add up to serious money.

“The average smoker can save around £38 a week by quitting smoking, that’s £2,000 a year, according to the NHS,” said Abbas Kanani, a pharmacist at Chemist Click.

The good news is, evidence suggests quitting at any point in life leads to big improvements in your health, including increased life expectancy and lower disease risk.

“Stopping smoking is one of the best things you will ever do for your health,” said Kanani.

“Quitting smoking improves your physical health and boosts your mental health and wellbeing after as little as six weeks of being smoke-free. Every time you smoke a cigarette, your body is flooded with thousands of chemicals, many of which are poisonous.

Being able to taste and smell food better is another huge bonus to quitting smoking.

And as the World Health Organisation (WHO) highlights, tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year, including 1.3 million non-smokers who are exposed to second-hand smoke.

“Quitting means you’ll protect your loved ones from the potential health harms of second-hand smoke too,” said Kanani.

Source: The Independent, 14 August 2023
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** Weight-loss apps to offer NHS help to obese

Four apps to help people with obesity lose weight, including the offer of medication, could be used by the NHS in England, under draft health guidance.

With 30-70% of the population having no access to weight management services in their area, the apps aim to reduce waiting times for treatment.

Weight-loss drugs can be prescribed alongside healthy eating, exercise and psychological support.

Under draft recommendations from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the four apps can be used by the NHS while evidence is collected on their cost-effectiveness over the next four years.

Their success will be judged on the change in people's weight, how often they complete the programme and the number of appointments needed and cost of medicines prescribed.

Up to 48,000 people could use the apps, saving 145,000 hours of doctors' time, calculations by NICE show.

The technology aims to provide support for those who are not able to attend face-to-face appointments with weight management services, affecting 10-30%, or who do not have access to local help or are on a waiting list.

At present, a quarter of adults in England are obese and more than a third are overweight.

Source: BBC News, 15 August 2023
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ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.

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