Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Long-Term Health Benefits Of Quitting Smoking Eclipse Negative Effects From Any Weight Gain
If you quit smoking and gain weight, it may seem like you're trading one set of health problems for another. But a new U.S. study finds you're still better off in the long run. Compared with smokers, even the quitters who gained the most weight had at least a 50 percent lower risk of dying prematurely from heart disease and other causes, the Harvard-led study found. (Stobbe, 8/15)
Childhood exposure to secondhand smoke is linked to lung disease decades later, according to a study published Thursday by the American Cancer Society. For 22 years, researchers have been following more than 70,000 adults who have never smoked. At the beginning of the study, they were asked whether they lived in a household with a smoker while they were children. Those who did were 31 percent more likely to die of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This is the first study to find a correlation between the two. (Furby, 8/16)
