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** 29 June 2021
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** UK
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** Homeless people offered free e-cigarettes in trial (#1)
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** Rev Richard Coles calls for end to glamourising of alcoholism on TV (#2)
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** International
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** Juul pays $40m to settle North Carolina's teen vaping claims (#3)
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** US: Smoking more than doubles heart disease risk amongst African Americans, says study (#4)
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** An educational intervention can help vapers use their e-cigarettes to quit smoking (#5)
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** UK
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** Homeless people are being offered free e-cigarette starter packs in a trial aimed at helping them quit smoking. Homeless centres in five parts of the UK including London, Scotland and Wales will work with 480 homeless people, providing half with e-cigarettes and allocating another half to a care group in order to see whether e-cigarettes help participants quit smoking and offer them value for money.
The project is being led by London South Bank University (LSBU) and University College London. Costing £1.7m, the project has been funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and is in collaboration with UEA, Kings College London, Queen Mary University of London, the University of York, Cardiff University, the University of Stirling, and the University of Edinburgh.
Prof Lynne Dawkins from LSBU said that in an earlier trial, the kits "worked well" and staff at homeless centres were able to support the study. Research from the University of East Anglia shows that around 70% of homeless people smoke tobacco.
Source: BBC News, 28 June 2021
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** The Rev Richard Coles has called for less glamourised and more realistic depictions of alcoholism on TV as he recalled his late husband’s battle with excessive drinking that led to his death. Coles, a vicar in Northamptonshire, said there was a need to restore “realism to a distorted picture” of “how we poison ourselves”.
Speaking to the Radio Times, Coles cited Netflix show Narcos as an example of an inaccurate depiction of excess. He praised BBC show The Archers for a more grounded portrayal of the dangers and impacts of alcohol addiction. Coles’ husband David Coles died in December 2019 of alcoholic liver disease.
Coles concluded, ''If we are to make realistic decisions about how we poison ourselves, we need the information, the hard facts, not the romanticised, glamorised, falsified version of alcohol that entertainment offers and advertising promotes.’’
Source: The Guardian, 29 June 2021
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** International
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** Juul will pay $40m and make ‘’drastic changes to the way it conducts business’’ as part of a settlement with North Carolina over the company’s role in popularising e-cigarettes amongst young people, North Carolina’s attorney-general Josh Stein announced on Monday 28th June.
The move makes North Carolina the first state to reach a settlement with Juul over claims that the company sparked a surge in e-cigarette usage among younger people by gearing its marketing towards them, and that it failed to warn about the potential harms. In addition to North Carolina, attorney-generals in 13 states and the District of Columbia have also sued Juul over its marketing claims, including California and New York. A group of 39 states last year announced a co-ordinated probe of Juul’s marketing practices.
As part of the agreement with North Carolina, Juul will pay $40m over six years to fund programmes to help people quit e-cigarettes and prevent addiction, along with other research. Juul has also committed to changing its business practices in the state in order to avoid appealing to young people, including no marketing that aimed at people under the age of 21 and tighter restrictions and verification requirements for online sales as well as those at physical stores.
Source: Financial Times, 28 June 2021
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** New research from the Jackson Heart Study has offered new insights into the role that smoking might play in the disproportionately high death rates from coronary heart disease (CHD) amongst African Americans. The study found that current smoking was responsible for just over a twofold increased risk of CHD amongst African American smokers compared to never smokers.
The study also found that current African American smokers had more atherosclerotic plaque build-up than never smokers, which is a predictor of future CHD. The study however found that former smokers did not have an increased risk for CHD, which according to the study’s authors suggests that quitting smoking may reduce CHD risk in former smokers to levels at or near those who never smoked.
The Jackson Heart Study has followed participants with and without risk factors for heart disease since 1998, following approximately 5,300 African American participants living in three counties within the Jackson, Mississippi metropolitan area. About 12% of the respondents identified themselves as current smokers whilst 18% identified themselves as former smokers.
The more than twofold higher risk for African American participants developing CHD in the Jackson Heart Study is higher than the risk found in a similar study involving predominantly white participants, which found a twofold increase in risk of CHD in men who smoked and a 1.5-fold increase in risk of CHD in women who smoked.
Source: Harvard Health Blog, 28 June 2021
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** A new study from the Moffitt Cancer Center’s Tobacco Research and Intervention Program, published in The Lancet Public Health, has found that providing smoking cessation advice can make an important difference in the effectiveness of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation. The study looked at dual e-cigarette and cigarette users and found that advice helped those who would not otherwise have stopped using cigarettes to quit smoking altogether.
The study came about as researchers were concerned that smokers who started vaping with the intention to quit would instead end up using both products. The research team interviewed vapers who were and were not able to quit smoking and produced a series of ‘’If You Vape’’ booklets as an intervention with smoking cessation advice geared specifically for dual users.
To test their intervention, the Moffitt team launched a national trial with nearly 2,900 dual users. Participants were randomized into three groups: an assessment group receiving no intervention, a generic self-help group receiving standard smoking cessation materials, and the targeted intervention group receiving the new “If You Vape” booklets.
The results showed that the targeted intervention produced smoking abstinence rates about 5 to 10 percentage points higher than the assessment group over the 18 months of treatment. The generic intervention produced abstinence rates in between the two other arms. The research also found that those who reported the most dependence on combustible cigarettes benefitted the most from the new intervention. About 20% of dependent smokers who received the booklets had quit smoking by six months, compared to 13% of those in the assessment arm.
Source: Scienmag, 25 June 2021
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