Boys ages 8-17 exposed to secondhand smoke have significantly higher systolic blood pressure than boys not exposed to tobacco smoke, U.S. researchers say. Lead author Jill Baumgartner, a research fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, says the study showed girls the same ages exposed to secondhand smoke had lower blood pressure than girls who were not exposed to tobacco smoke.

“These findings support several previous studies suggesting that something about female gender may provide protection from harmful vascular changes due to secondhand smoke exposure,” Baumgartner says in a statement. “An important next step is to understand why.” Baumgartner and colleagues analyzed data from four National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys conducted from 1999 to 2006 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They assessed 6,421 youths’ exposure to secondhand smoke from the subjects’ own reports of whether they lived with a smoker and through participants’ levels of cotinine — a substance produced when the body breaks down nicotine.

The findings suggest the cardiovascular effects of tobacco smoke exposure may begin very early in life. It is not known whether these changes are reversible if children are removed from smoke exposure.

The study was presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in Denver.

Breathing secondhand smoke could increase a child’s risk of mental and behavioral disorders, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), suggests a new study. The study adds to evidence suggesting that kids of mothers who smoked while pregnant may be more likely to have behavioral problems. Secondhand smoke exposure has also been linked to heart and breathing problems in kids.

“It’s time for us to begin to prevent children’s exposure to (secondhand smoke) if we are serious about preventing these diseases,” Dr. Bruce Lanphear, who heads the Cincinnati Children’s Environmental Health Center, told Reuters Health.

“We have sufficient evidence to prevent many of these diseases, but we don’t,” added Lanphear, who was not involved in the study.

The authors, led by Frank Bandiera of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, studied the link between secondhand smoke and mental health in a nationally representative sample of almost 3,000 kids ages 8 to 15.

Researchers measured the level of cotinine – which forms when nicotine in tobacco breaks down – in each kid’s blood to find which kids had been exposed to secondhand smoke. Kids with the highest levels of cotinine were considered to be smokers themselves, and were not included in the study.

The researchers also interviewed all kids to see which ones showed symptoms of a mental or behavioral disorder.

After taking into account factors such as age and race, boys who were exposed to secondhand smoke were more likely to show symptoms of ADHD, depression, anxiety, and conduct disorder than those with no secondhand smoke exposure. Girls who were exposed to secondhand smoke had more symptoms of ADHD and anxiety only.

However, the number of kids actually diagnosed with most of the conditions was still small. While 201 kids, or about 7 percent, had enough symptoms of ADHD to be diagnosed with the disorder, only 15 kids were diagnosed with depression and 9 with an anxiety disorder.

Researchers acknowledge that it can be difficult to separate the effects of secondhand smoke from harm caused by mothers smoking while those children were in the womb.

In a commentary accompanying the study, Dr. Jonathan Samet from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California said that more research is needed to determine how exactly exposure to secondhand smoke could affect kids’ brains.

Bandiera also noted that the study can’t prove that secondhand smoke causes mental and behavioral disorders. But in the meantime, he told Reuters Health, “We should keep the kids away from secondhand smoke.”

His study was published online Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine alongside research from UK authors also showing a link between secondhand smoke exposure and poor mental health in about 900 kids.

The U.S. Surgeon General has estimated that about 60 percent of children are exposed to secondhand smoke.

Lanphear said that while there might not be enough definitive evidence to tie secondhand smoke exposure to mental health problems, it would be a “surprise” if there was not a link between the two.

The authors conclude that more efforts are needed both to ban smoking in all public places where there are children and to prevent kids from being exposed to secondhand smoke at home.

Children and teens exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to develop symptoms for a variety of mental health problems, including major depressive disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and others, according to a study published in Tuesday’s edition of the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

At this point, it should come as no surprise to anyone that exposure to tobacco smoke is unhealthy. Plenty of studies have linked secondhand smoke to respiratory problems, asthma, sudden infant death syndrome, middle ear infections and other physical health problems. But the link between secondhand smoke and mental health has not been examined as closely.

The new study is believed to be the first that looks at how secondhand smoke exposure – as measured by the presence of a nicotine metabolite in the blood – is associated with mental health in a nationally representative sample of American kids and teens.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health, the University of Miami and Legacy, the nonprofit that fights tobacco use, used data on 2,901 youths who were between the ages of 8 and 15 when they were part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2001 to 2004. As part of the study, the kids were asked to provide blood samples; those who were exposed to secondhand smoke had higher levels of the cotinine, which is produced as the body metabolizes nicotine. The kids were also assessed for a variety of mental health disorders as defined by the National Institute of Mental Health’s Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children Version IV.

RELATED: Another reason not to smoke around children

Here’s what the researchers found: On average, the kids had almost five symptoms of major depressive disorder, almost four symptoms of ADHD, almost three symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder and more than one symptom of conduct disorder.

After taking into consideration the kids’ health history and other factors, the researchers determined that levels of cotinine in the blood were strongly correlated with ADHD symptoms and weakly linked with symptoms of major depressive disorder, conduct disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. Overall, the links between cotinine and psychiatric symptoms were greater for boys than for girls, and for whites compared to blacks and Mexican Americans.

Millions of Americans visit casinos to unwind and test their luck against the hands of fate, but lurking in the shadows is a gamble few would contemplate before they stepped inside a casino’s doors. The threat is not addiction. It’s not the specter of losing a small fortune. The hidden danger is secondhand smoke.

According to a new study by scientists from Stanford and Tufts universities published in the journal Environmental Research, each year 50 million nonsmoking casino patrons and 400,000 nonsmoking casino workers gamble with their lives inside casinos that allow smoking. Less than 2 hours of exposure to secondhand smoke in half of the casinos surveyed is enough to impair the heart’s ability to pump blood, placing susceptible casino patrons and workers at acute risk of heart disease.

Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and is a major cause of disability, costing the country an estimated $151.6 billion in 2007. Approximately 8 percent of the population 45 to 64 years of age, and 20 percent of those aged over 65, suffers from coronary heart disease. These older people are at greater risk from exposure to secondhand smoke. Compounding the concern, the two age groups have higher gambling rates than those under 45.

The team of experts from Stanford and Tufts examined pollution levels in 66 smoky casinos in five states, and three casinos that are smoke-free, comparing them with the pollution levels outdoors. The study is a continuation of earlier research conducted at 36 casinos in California. An additional 30 casinos were tested in four other states.

To make their measurements, the researchers operated covertly. Two to three researchers at a time entered casinos carrying small monitoring devices tucked inside purses or jackets. Combining the Stanford/Tufts data with previously published measurements from three other states, the team developed nationwide averages and ranges for pollution levels inside casinos.

The study focused on two types of air pollutants blamed for tobacco-related cancers: fine particulate matter, which deposits deep in the lungs, and a group of chemicals called particulate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PPAHs, which include at least 10 different carcinogenic compounds. Results show that gamblers and casino workers in casinos that permit smoking are subject to levels of particulate air pollution 10 times higher than those who visit smoke-free casinos.

The researchers also found that ventilation and air cleaning do not control indoor smoke levels. “The only effective control for secondhand smoke was reducing the number of smokers,” said Lynn Hildemann, a professor of environmental engineering and science at Stanford and the principal investigator for the study.

“The fewer smokers, the less polluted the air. If you switch to a nonsmoking casino, your exposure to harmful fine particulate matter levels indoors will be reduced by 90 percent, and your exposure to carcinogenic PPAH levels will decrease by 80 percent.”
Unfortunately, smoke-free casinos are rare. In the United States, 88 percent of commercial casinos and nearly 100 percent of tribal casinos allow smoking.

Those patrons who seek refuge in nonsmoking areas attached to the smoking casinos – such as restaurants, where children are found – find scant protection. Unless these areas are completely sealed off from the casino, with closed doors and a separate ventilation system, the researchers found that secondhand smoke seeps in, resulting in pollution levels seven times as high as outdoors.

In contrast, the three smoke-free casinos surveyed had pollution levels as low as the outdoors. In more than nine-of-ten smoking casinos in the survey, the indoor pollution levels exceeded the World Health Organization standard for fine particulate matter.

“Casino patrons are gambling not only with their money, but with their health, and the odds are stacked against them,” said Hildemann. “Casinos have always been huge draws, but in recent years we’ve seen an increase of family activities tied to casinos. So in addition to seniors, the health risks are starting to reach new, more vulnerable populations, particularly children.”

The pervasive secondhand smoke indoors poses an even graver health threat to casino workers. In the new study, using published data measuring the levels of cotinine, a biomarker of tobacco that shows up in human tissue, Hildemann and colleagues added to earlier results and found amounts of cotinine in casino dealers who are nonsmokers were higher than in 95 percent of the nonsmoking U.S. population. Nevada casino dealers have triple the asthma rates of the general state population.

“Cotinine levels in these nonsmoking workers – who were exposed only while at work – significantly increased between the beginning and the end of their work shift. Similar results have been found in casino patrons with shorter exposures. This is clearly due to secondhand smoke in the casino,” said James Repace, a biophysicist and visiting assistant clinical professor at Tufts University School of Medicine.

The study was funded by the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute.

A lawsuit seeking class-action status accuses Harrah’s New Orleans Casino of failing to protect its employees from dangerous levels of secondhand smoke. The mother of a former Harrah’s dealer who died of cancer last year filed the federal suit Wednesday against the casino’s owner, Nevada-based Caesars Entertainment Corp.

The suit claims Maceo Bevrotte Jr.’s cancer was “directly linked” to his prolonged exposure to secondhand smoke at the casino. The suit says Bevrotte worked at Harrah’s for about 15 years.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and asks a judge to certify the case as a class action for at least 1,000 current, former or future nonsmoking casino employees.

Caesar’s spokesman Gary Thompson said the company doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed threat of “second-hand” smoke. Indeed, the bans are symptoms of a far more grievous threat, a cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized throughout the body politic, spreading even to the tiniest organs of local government.

This cancer is the only real hazard involved – the cancer of unlimited government power. The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or is in fact just a phantom menace, as a study published recently in the British Medical Journal indicates. The issue is: If it were harmful, what would be the proper reaction? Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating people about the potential danger and allowing them to make their own decisions, or should they seize the power of government and force people to make the “right” decision? Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than trying to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on their health, the bans are the unwanted intrusion. Loudly billed as measures that only affect “public places,” they have actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops and offices – places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose customers are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like the smoke.

Some local bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is negligible, such as outdoor public parks. The decision to smoke, or to avoid “second-hand” smoke, is a question to be answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married or divorced, and so on. All of these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the neighbors. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must be free because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbors, and only his own judgment can guide him through it. Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Smokers are a numerical minority, practicing a habit considered annoying and unpleasant to the majority.

So the majority has simply commandeered the power of government and used it to dictate their behavior. That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco while waiting for a table at your favorite restaurant. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm at those wisps of smoke while they unleash the unlimited intrusion of government into our lives. We do not elect officials to control and manipulate our behavior.

The Senate approved final amendments to a bill revamping the state’s workers’ compensation programs on Wednesday that could allow for claims to be made for illnesses arising from exposure to secondhand smoke.
The bill prohibits workers’ comp claims for other prolonged exposure to chemicals or inhalants, but Sen. Robert Schaaf, R-St. Joseph, won approval of an amendment to exempt exposure to secondhand smoke from the ban.

Sen. Jack Goodman, R-Mount Vernon, who sponsored the workers’ comp bill, said he felt it necessary to prohibit other toxic exposure claims from being covered by workers’ comp, saying such claims are better left to the courts due to the long amount of time it takes for symptoms to develop.

A recent research showed that daily exposure of children to second hand smoke have tripled their risk of lung cancer and an increased risk of respiratory problems than those who grew up in a smoke-free environment.
An online report that appeared in the Jan. 28 issue of the British Medical Journal state that more than 123,000 in 10 European countries provided information on second hand smoke exposure that were followed for an average of seven years.

Author of the study, Dr. Paolo Vineis, a professor of environmental epidemiology at Imperial College London came out with the new data by collecting information about the exposure first and information about the outcome second.
97 people in the study were diagnosed of lung cancer, 20 had cancers of the upper respiratory tract while 14 died of chronic obstructive lung disease or emphysema. Those exposed to second hand smoke in childhood has 30 percent higher chance of acquiring lung disease than those who were not. An estimated 1,900 to 2,700 cases of sudden infant death syndrome in the United States yearly is linked to second hand smoke.
As smoking at home cannot be banned, Vineis advised that parents should avoid smoking at all times in the presence of their children. Dr. Norman Edelman, a consultant on scientific affairs for the American Lung Association further advised that if one must smoke, don’t smoke in an indoor area that is shared by anyone else.
One crucial finding of the new study is that the harmful effect of secondhand smoke is much greater in former smokers than nonsmokers. According to Edelman, it gives credence to the idea that total exposure to smoke is a major determinant of damage. Cigarette smoke is bad no matter how you take it in.

Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers and colleagues from Research Institute for a Tobacco Free Society have found that a reduction in secondhand smoking in American homes was associated with fewer cases of otitis media, the scientific name for middle ear infection. The study appears on January 26, 2011, as an online first article on the website of the journal Tobacco Control.

“Our study is the first to demonstrate the public health benefits to children of the increase in smoke-free homes across the nation. It also is the first study to quantify over the past 13 years a reversal in what had been a long-term increasing trend in middle ear infections among children,” said lead author Hillel Alpert, research scientist in HSPH’s Department of Society, Human Development, and Health. “If parents avoid smoking at home, they can protect their children from the disease that is the most common cause of visits to physicians and hospitals for medical care,” he said.

Secondhand smoke (smoke from a burning cigarette combined with smoke exhaled by a smoker) has been shown to increase the level of unhealthy particles in the air, including nicotine and other toxins. In 2006 the U.S. Surgeon General stated that enough evidence existed to suggest a link between parents’ smoking and children’s ear infections.

Otitis media is the leading reason for visits to medical practices and hospitals among U.S. children, with an annual estimated economic burden of $3 billion to $5 billion. Children’s visits for otitis media increased steadily from 9.9 million in 1975 to 24.5 million visits in 1990. However, the researchers found the average annual number of outpatient visits for otitis media in children aged 6 years and younger dropped 5%, and hospital discharges fell by 10% per year from 1993 to 2006. (The researchers note that other factors may have contributed to the decline, including a pneumonia vaccine that was introduced in 2000.)

To determine the number of smoke-free households, the researchers used data from the National Cancer Institute’s Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey. They found voluntary no-smoking rules in households nearly doubled from 45% in 1993 to 86% in 2006, most likely due to increased awareness of secondhand smoke hazards and a reduction in the number of people smoking in homes.

“Smoke-free rules in homes are extremely important to protect children, given the many adverse effects that secondhand tobacco smoke exposure has on child health,” Alpert said.