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** 16 October 2020
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** UK
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** Study: Chronic diseases and public health failures fuelling COVID-19 deaths (#1)
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** Study: More research needed about e-cigarettes use in pregnancy (#2)
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** North East: False e-cigarette health fears linked to decline among users (#3)
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** Links of the Week
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** Tobacco control survey England (#4)
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** Cochrane Library: Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation (#5)
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** Smoking cessation and cannabis use (#6)
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** UK
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**
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** Rising risk factors and non-communicable diseases including obesity, heart disease and diabetes, has created a “perfect storm” that is “fuelling” COVID-19 deaths both in the UK and around the world, according to new research. The research is based on the latest findings from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study published in The Lancet, which analysed new health data from 204 countries and territories.

The findings show that in the UK, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are now responsible for 88% of the overall disease burden. British people also have one of the lowest healthy life expectancies, at 68.9 years, in western Europe, the study showed. In part this is due to failures to tackle chronic public health problems, such as obesity, over the last three decades. The data also showed that tobacco use (125,000 deaths), high blood pressure (87,800), dietary risks (78,500), high blood sugar (75,500), and high BMI (56,200) were among the five leading risk factors for poor health in the UK in 2019.

Several of these risk factors and NCDs – such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease – are associated with increased risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19 and highlight the critical need for stronger public health efforts, the researchers said.

Professor Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, US, who led the study, said the risk factors for many NCDs were “preventable and treatable.” He continued by saying: “We are failing to change unhealthy behaviours, particularly those related to diet quality, caloric intake, and physical activity, in part due to inadequate policy attention and funding for public health and behavioural research.”

Professor John Newton, who is director of Health Improvement at Public Health England and a member of the Global Burden of Disease Scientific Council, said the report “calls for governments to do more to tackle the impact of unhealthy behaviours. COVID has shown that health is an absolutely critical component of economic growth and equality and cannot be ignored.”

Source: Evening Express, 15 October 2020

See also: The Lancet – Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 ([link removed])

The Telegraph: Obesity 'fuelling' Covid-19 deaths in Britain and globally, Lancet disease study finds ([link removed])

The US Sun: DEADLY TWINDEMIC Covid-19 deaths fuelled by ‘perfect storm’ of obesity and social inequality, major study finds ([link removed])
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Read Article ([link removed])


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** Researchers from Durham University have looked at the neurobehavioural outcomes of 83 one-month-old babies, including 44 born to mothers who did not smoke during pregnancy, 29 born to mums who smoked cigarettes and ten to women who used e-cigarettes. The babies were born at least 37 weeks into pregnancy.

Findings from the study show that the birthweight, gestation period and head circumference of babies did not differ between those born to mothers who used e-cigarettes during pregnancy and those who did not smoke at all. Babies of mothers who smoked traditional cigarettes during pregnancy had significantly lower birth weight and head circumference in comparison. However, the researchers stated babies born to mothers who used e-cigarettes, so were exposed to nicotine in the womb, had a greater number of abnormal primitive reflexes and decreased ‘self-regulation’ compared to the babies of non-smokers.

The researchers admitted the study was small and more investigation was needed “so health professionals can provide women with a better-informed choice about harm reduction.”
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** Source: Daily Mail, 16 October 2020

See also: EClinical Medicine - The effects of prenatal cigarette and e-cigarette exposure on infant neurobehaviour: A comparison to a control group ([link removed](20)30346-1/fulltext)
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** Editorial note
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** Professor Linda Bauld, Professor of Public Health University of Edinburgh, commenting on the research said:

“… The authors are correct that little is known about how vaping in pregnancy affects babies and infants. However, we should be cautious when assuming this study proves that vaping in pregnancy harms babies. The first reason to be cautious is that their hypothesis that it is the nicotine in e-cigarettes that may be to blame is not supported by previous research in humans. The large SNAP trial found that young children whose mothers had used nicotine replacement therapy after stopping smoking in pregnancy had normal development up to two years old.
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** “The second reason is that women who vape in pregnancy are almost universally ex-smokers and it is not uncommon for these women to gradually shift to vaping or even smoke and vape in pregnancy. Vaping was simply self-reported in the study and smoking status was only assessed once at 32 weeks pregnant. It is therefore possible that some or even all of the vaping mothers may have smoked even at low levels at some point during their pregnancy, and if they did this would be a significant confounder, making the results difficult to interpret. … Finally, it is important to note the small size of the vaping group – just 10 women. That sample size is not sufficient to draw firm conclusions.
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** “There are also some questions to be asked about basic errors in the paper. For the demographic information, carbon monoxide (CO) readings are used to validate smoking status and the paper says that this translates to the % of CO in the maternal blood. But CO screening involves a breath test not a blood test. In addition, the authors refer to ‘e-cigarette smoking’ throughout the paper. There is no smoke or tobacco in e-cigarettes and these devices are not ‘smoked’. These two features suggest the authors are not familiar with the literature in this area and are issues that should have been picked up when the paper was peer-reviewed.”
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Read Article ([link removed] )


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** Health officials are concerned that the use of e-cigarettes in the North East has seen a significant decline over the last year. The annual survey by public health charity –ASH, carried out by YouGov, found that in March 2020 154,990 people were vaping in the region, compared to 169,700 in 2019.

Across Great Britain, the figure dropped from 3.6 million to 3.2 million. At the same time as this report, a review by Cochrane, a respected international charitable research body, found that using an e-cigarette was 70% more effective at helping smokers quit than nicotine replacement therapy (such as patches or gum).

ASH says unfounded concerns about safety of e-cigarettes are a likely cause in the drop in numbers – just 39% of smokers in Great Britain correctly believe vaping is less harmful than smoking in 2020.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, said: “About a third of smokers have never even tried an e-cigarette and less than 20% are currently using one. If many more smokers could be encouraged to give e-cigarettes a go the latest evidence indicates that many more might successfully quit.”

Ailsa Rutter OBE, Director of the North East tobacco office, Fresh, said: “Tobacco smoking kills one in two long term smokers, and North East hospitals see tens of thousands of hospital admissions every year from smoking. But vaping is not smoking, and we do need to end the confusion around this. Most people who vape are doing so with the aim of switching from tobacco. E-cigarettes are now the country’s most popular quitting aid, and we need to support anyone using them to stay tobacco-free.”

Source: Chronicle Live, 15 October 2020

See also: ASH - Use of e-cigarettes (vapes) among adults in Great Britain ([link removed])
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Read Article ([link removed] )


** Links of the Week
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**
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** The Chartered Trading Standards Institute has published the eighth Tobacco Control Survey report. It presents the findings of a survey of tobacco control activities carried out by local council trading standards services between April 2019 and March 2020.

This year the survey asks respondents to identify the priority given to tobacco control activities by their council and to what might enhance this priority; this data is to be used to help identify where additional effort is required to promote activities.
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View Report ([link removed])


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** The Cochrane Library has published an update to the Cochrane systematic review of electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation.

The update builds confidence and certainty in the evidence that e-cigarettes can be effective smoking cessation aids, which are more effective and no more harmful than routinely offered NRT, like patches and gum.

ASH ([link removed]) has produced this short, one-sided briefing explaining and contextualising the review's findings.
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View Review ([link removed])


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** The National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT) has published a briefing on how to help clients stop or manage cannabis use so that they can minimise the impact it has upon attempts to quit smoking.

The briefing provides practitioners with an overview of cannabis products and methods of harm reduction so that they can speak with confidence to their clients on this topic.
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View Report ([link removed] )
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For more information call 020 7404 0242, email [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or visit www.ash.org.uk

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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