Depression linked to acute Kidney Disease

Depression was linked to a higher rate of hospitalization for acute kidney injury (formerly known as acute kidney failure), even after adjusting for heart disease, inflammatory markers, and lifestyle factors such as body mass index (BMI), smoking, alcohol consumption and physical activity, according to the investigators.

The study, led by Dr. Willem Kop of the Department of Medical Psychology and Neuropsychology at the University of Tilburg, the Netherlands, included 5,785 people in the United States who were followed for 10 years. 

At the start of the study, the participants were 65 years and older and were not on kidney dialysis.

The researchers found that depression was also associated with a higher prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) at baseline. It was 20% more common in people with chronic kidney disease than in those without the disease.

The study appears online March 10 in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

"People with elevated depressive symptoms have a higher risk of subsequent adverse kidney disease outcomes.

This is partially explained by other medical factors related to depression and kidney disease. But the association with depression was stronger in patients who were otherwise healthy compared to those who had co-existing medical disorders such as diabetes or heart disease," the researchers wrote in a journal news release.

The researchers are currently examining factors that may explain the link between depression and kidney disease and failure. These could include delays in seeking medical care, the effect that depression has on the immune and nervous systems, and miscommunication between patients and doctors.

Heart Attacks Down 17% After Smoking Ban

Smoking bans have an immediate and dramatic effect on reducing heart attacks, according to two new analyses of laws in the USA, Canada and Europe.

Two separate analyses released Monday each found that heart attack rates fall 17% within a year after smoking bans take effect.

One analysis, which included 13 studies, appears in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. A second analysis, which considered 11 studies, appears in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Cigarette smoke can trigger a heart attack in people with underlying heart disease by causing clots or spasms in the blood vessels, says David Goff, a spokesman for the American Heart Association who wasn't involved in either study.

Given that there are about 920,000 heart attacks every year, the studies suggests that public smoking bans could prevent more than 150,000 of these, according to the Cardiology paper.

Taken together, the findings provide strong, consistent evidence that the country should enact more smoke-free laws, Goff says.

"This is a huge, huge effect for a very, very low cost," says Stanton Glantz of the University of California-San Francisco, co-author of the Circulation study.

Nil By Mouth: Sokeless Tobacco Kills

The discovery of a new range of cancer-causing chemicals in smokeless tobacco has backed up advice that it's not a "safe" alternative to cigarettes.

Called polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the chemicals contaminate smoke from cigarettes and wood fires, but were assumed to be absent from smokeless tobacco products such as moist snuff because users hold it in their mouths – between lip and gum – rather than burning it.

Now researchers have found that popular moist snuff products on sale in the US contain at least 22 PAHs, probably because the tobacco is exposed to wood smoke during its curing process.

Moist snuff, also called snus, is mostly used in North America and Scandinavia, but is banned from sale in all European Union countries except Sweden.

Five pack

A typical dose of moist snuff has the same PAH content as five cigarettes, said Irina Stepanov of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis as she presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society on 16 August in Washington DC.

Moist snuff consumption, which doubled in the US between 1986 and 2005, has been linked with increased risks of mouth and pancreatic cancers. The PAHs add to 28 cancer-causing chemicals including nicotine and nitrosamines previously identified in the snuff.

"The use of smokeless tobacco carries very serious risks and the new findings on PAH levels underscore this," says David Hammond of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, who monitors the safety of tobacco products. He warns, however, that smoke from cigarettes remains the biggest tobacco-related cancer risk.

Alcohol blamed for oral cancer rise

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Alcohol is chiefly to blame for an "alarming" rise in the rate of oral cancers among men and women in their forties, it has been claimed.

Experts said the number of 40-somethings developing cancers of the mouth, tongue, lip and throat had increased by a quarter in the past decade.

Smoking and alcohol consumption are the two main risk factors for oral cancers but since cancers caused by smoking often take up to 30 years to develop, tobacco is not thought to be the main culprit. Instead, the finger of suspicion is pointing at alcohol consumption, which has doubled in the UK since the 1950s.

Other risk factors that may be involved include a diet low in fruit and vegetables, and the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV), which also causes cervical cancer.

Figures produced by Cancer Research UK show that since the mid-1990s, rates of oral cancers have gone up by 28% for men in their forties and 24% for women.

The charity's health information manager Hazel Nunn said: "These latest figures are really alarming. Around three quarters of oral cancers are thought to be caused by smoking and drinking alcohol.

Tobacco is, by far, the main risk factor for oral cancer, so it's important that we keep encouraging people to give up and think about new ways to stop people taking it up in the first place.