Women Smokers Prone to Skin Cancer

Health Articles - A smoker has a risk of experiencing health problems Sell Squamous Carcinoma (SCC), one of the health problems of non-melanoma skin cancer. In fact, the risk is doubled in women who have the habit of smoking at least 20 years old.

Thus the results of the study Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, which was published in Cancer Causes and Control Journal.

In the study, the research team involving 698 participants, consisting of patients with non-melanoma skin cancer, and who have no skin disorder at all.

They asked all the participants to answer questions about smoking history, ranging from how long have smoked, how many rods a day, and if ever smoked.

The analysis showed, women have a higher risk of skin cancer types of SCC than men. The more intense the frequency of smoking, the risk is increased. The biggest risk experienced by women who have the habit of smoking every day for 20 years or more.



SCC has a big risk of spread from one organ to another organ, such as the face, ears, and lips. In fact, if not immediately treated to destroy the nose and ears.

Dr. Dana Rollison, lead author of the study, said it is not clear why women who smoke have a greater risk of skin cancer. But the results of the study showed, women contains cancer-causing compounds, and low levels of DNA repair enzymes than men.

"Further study is needed to explain more about the differences in the effects of smoking by sex," he said.

Menopause
Women smokers at risk of early menopause, at least one year earlier than women nonsmokers. Women smokers are generally menopause between the ages of 43-50 years. While non-smokers tend to postmenopausal women in the age range 46-51 years.

Conclusions derived from the analysis of a number of previous studies involving tens of thousands of women, including the results of a survey of 6,000 women in the United States, Poland, and Turkey.

The study, published in the journal Menopause did not stop the threat of an early menopause. Therefore, early menopause associated with a high risk of developing health problems such as osteoporosis and heart problems.

Jennie Kline from the Mailman School of Public Health Columbia University, New York, said that smoking is likely to affect a woman's body in controlling the production of estrogen. Smoking also contain toxins that can damage the egg cell in the ovary. "This may be the influence of menopause," he said.

Pot Smoking May Leave Mark On Teen Brains

Teenagers who frequently smoke marijuana may be setting themselves up for declines in intelligence and mental function that persist well into adulthood, new research suggests.

In a decades-long study of more than 1,000 New Zealanders, researchers found that adolescents who used marijuana at least four days per week lost an average of eight IQ points between the ages of 13 and 38—a pattern not seen among people who began smoking heavily only in adulthood.

Heavy pot smokers tended to show deficits in memory, concentration, and overall brainpower in relation to their peers, but these problems were more pronounced—and seemingly more lasting—among those who picked up the habit as teens, the study found.

Individuals who smoked heavily in adolescence had consistently lower IQs at age 38, even if they’d cut back in the previous year. By contrast, the IQ of the relative latecomers to marijuana was more closely linked with how much pot they’d smoked recently.

“The effect of persistent cannabis use on intellectual functioning is really confined to adolescents, [which] suggests that adolescents, in particular, are vulnerable to the effect of cannabis,” says lead author Madeline H. Meier, Ph.D., a psychologist and postdoctoral researcher at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina.
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An eight-point decline in IQ isn’t negligible, the authors say. Previous research suggests a drop in intelligence of that magnitude could, for instance, affect a person’s long-term career prospects, job performance, and income.

It’s reasonable to suspect that still-growing teen brains might be especially sensitive to the cumulative effects of marijuana, says Jeffrey Brosco, M.D., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

“In the developing brain, neurons are growing and changing, synapses are forming,” says Brosco, who was not involved in the study. “When there’s a lot of change in any part of the body, particularly the brain, that usually means it’s more vulnerable to environmental influences.”

The new study, which was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doesn’t prove that marijuana use directly impairs intelligence. It does, however, provide some of the strongest evidence to date of a cause-and-effect relationship.

The study participants underwent IQ tests when they were 13—before they’d ever tried marijuana—and again as adults, which provided the researchers a before-and-after snapshot of their intelligence. Earlier studies that found a link between mental ability and pot smoking have generally looked at a single point in time, raising the possibility that low IQ increases the likelihood of marijuana use, rather than vice versa, Meier says.

But Meier and her colleagues weren’t able to entirely rule out alternative explanations for the IQ declines seen in the study. For instance, although they controlled for alcohol and drug use, they focused on full-blown dependence (as opposed to more casual use) and therefore may have underestimated the effects of teen drinking.

“It’s hard to be dependent as a teenager, so you worry about [whether] you can be sure it’s the cannabis,” Brosco says. “Alcohol is well known to be a neurotoxin.”

Only 5% of the study participants began smoking marijuana regularly before age 18, and it’s not clear from the findings whether less-frequent users might experience similar declines in IQ and mental function. More research will be needed to determine the minimum dosage of marijuana associated with these problems, the authors say.

Source : Health