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** 7 October 2024
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** UK
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** Vaping could be banned outside schools and hospitals (#1)
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** Smoking rates on the increase in seaside town (#2)
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** Baby boomers living longer but are in worse health than previous generations (#4)
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** UK
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** Vaping could be banned outside schools and hospitals

Vaping outside schools and hospitals faces a ban under a planned crackdown on e-cigarettes.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, is discussing restricting vaping outdoors as part of efforts to ensure children do not take up the habit.

Although no decision has yet been made, a ban on vaping near schools, in hospital grounds and in playgrounds is considered by government insiders to be the most likely option.

Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, is said to favour outdoor restrictions and is understood to have argued for including pub gardens in the ban.

Ministers, however, have accepted the need to treat vaping differently from cigarettes and are unlikely to opt for a ban in outdoor hospitality after a backlash over plans to ban smoking in pub gardens.

E-cigarettes, which deliver nicotine without tobacco, are considered far safer than smoking and the government has been trying to encourage adult smokers to switch without seeing non-smokers take up the habit.

However, a study this week concluded that a million people who had never smoked were now vaping, with one in seven non-smokers aged 18 to 24 using e-cigarettes.

Vaping restrictions will be included in a beefed-up Tobacco and Vapes Bill due to be presented to parliament in the coming weeks. As well as banning anyone under 14 from ever buying cigarettes, Rishi Sunak originally planned to restrict packaging, promotion and flavouring of vapes.

There has been mounting concern that a profusion of cheap products attractive to children have been hooking young people on vaping. Use of e-cigarettes has been rising among the young, with disposable vapes particularly popular.

Whitty has repeatedly criticised the “utterly unacceptable” practice of marketing vapes to children, accusing companies of behaving in a “shameful way”.

Writing in The Times last year he said that vaping was “not risk free”, with the long-term effects of ingredients in the products still unknown. “If you smoke, vaping is much safer; if you don’t smoke, don’t vape,” Whitty wrote.

The Treasury has also been considering a vape tax designed to make products less affordable to children, although ministers are wary of increasing prices during a cost of living crisis.

Signalling that he wanted to go further on smoking than the Tories, Streeting has revived recommendations for banning smoking in some outdoor locations. However, after a backlash from the hospitality industry, he is now promising a “national conversation” before making a decision.

The move has prompted further discussion in government about whether similar restrictions should apply to vaping. Any ban on outdoor vaping would almost certainly be less restrictive than one on smoking. With many NHS services using e-cigarettes as quitting aids, there is also likely to be a push for exemptions in some hospital settings.

Hazel Cheeseman, chief executive of the anti-smoking charity Ash, said: “The government should publish the bill as soon as possible, putting an end to speculation over its intentions and bringing forward the day when we begin to end smoking for good.

“Tougher regulation on vapes is needed, particularly to protect children from aggressive marketing. Extensions to smoke-free regulations can also accelerate progress to a smoke-free country, but a full consultation is needed to ensure any new rules don’t have unintended consequences and support the government’s intention to help more smokers to quit.”

Source: The Times, 4 October 2024

See also: The Lancet - Vaping among adults in England who have never regularly smoked: a population-based study, 2016–24 ([link removed](24)00183-X/fulltext) | ASH - Nearly 3 million people in Britain have quit smoking with a vape in the last 5 years ([link removed])
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** Smoking rates on the increase in seaside town

The number of people who smoke in Blackpool has increased, despite a downward trend across the UK.

The proportion of smokers in the Lancashire resort was 21.3% in 2023 - one fifth of adults who live there - and the second highest area in the UK.

In 2022, the figure was 18.8%, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

About six million people aged over 18 smoked cigarettes in the UK in 2023, the lowest proportion of current smokers since records began in 2011.

Across Lancashire, 12.2% of adults smoked in 2023, down from 13.4% in 2022 and 14.7% in 2021, according to the most recent figures from the ONS.

But while the number of people smoking is going down, the number of people vaping is on the increase, with over five million e-cigarette users in Great Britain, the ONS said.

Telha Rashid from Smoke Free Lancashire said 80% of what they offered was behavioural support and he would encourage anyone wanting to stop smoking to see a specialist advisor.

"You reduce your chances of a heart attack or stroke by 50% just by giving up smoking in the first 24 to 48 hours," he said.

"The amount of money you can save and the improvement to health is amazing."

Source: BBC, 4 October 2024
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** Baby boomers living longer but are in worse health than previous generations

Baby boomers are living longer but are in worse health than previous generations were at the same age, despite advances in medicine and greater awareness of healthy lifestyles, a global study shows.

Researchers found people in their 50s and 60s were more likely to have serious health problems than people who were born before or during the second world war when they reached that age.

The results cannot be explained by people living longer, experts at the University of Oxford and University College London (UCL) said. Obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease and other diseases were all affecting people at younger ages.

The lead author, Laura Gimeno, of UCL, said there was a “generational health drift”, with younger generations tending to have worse health than previous generations at the same age.

“Even with advances in medicine and greater public awareness about healthy living, people born since 1945 are at greater risk of chronic illness and disability than their predecessors.

“With up to a fifth of the population in high-income western nations now over 65, increasing demands for health and social care will have huge implications on government spending.”

Researchers analysed health data for more than 100,000 people between 2004 and 2018, covering several generations of people aged 50 and above across England, the US and Europe.

They found increasing rates of chronic disease, especially when comparing people born between 1936 and 1945 and those born from 1955 to 1959.

Rates of chronic disease rose across successive generations in all regions, with more recently born adults more likely to have cancer, lung disease, heart issues, type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol than their predecessors at the same age.

Although prevalence of type 2 diabetes rose at the same rate across all regions, diagnoses of cancer, heart problems and high cholesterol increased the most in England and Europe, with baby boomers being 1.5 times more likely to have these issues than their predecessors at the same age.

Levels of grip strength, a good measure of overall muscle strength and healthy ageing, decreased across generations in England and the US, but either increased or remained constant in Europe.

Most people in postwar generations were just as likely or more likely than their predecessors to struggle with tasks such as bathing, eating, walking short distances and shopping for groceries.

“Our study finds concerning new evidence that more recently born generations are experiencing worsening health as they enter their later years,” Gimeno said.

“Despite declining rates of disability for the prewar generations, chronic disease and increasing obesity may be spilling over into severe disability for the baby boomers.

“If life expectancy remains stable or continues to increase, these worrying trends may see younger generations spending more years in poor health and living with disability.”

Source: The Guardian, 7 October 2024

See also: Journals of Gerontology - Cohort Differences in Physical Health and Disability in the United States and Europe ([link removed])
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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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