Smoking, Family History Increase Risk of Stroke

Now Woo has done research that looks at the relationship between hemorrhagic strokes and smoking. He says researchers have known smoking is a risk factor for aneurysm formation.

"We also know that having a family member who had a history of aneurysm rupture was also a risk factor for aneurysm formation," Woo says.

Woo looked at several hundred people who had had ruptured aneurysms and compared them to people who did not have aneurysms. He found that people who smoked had double the risk for aneurysm. His analysis also found that those with a family history of aneurysm also had twice the risk of forming one. But people who had the family history and who smoked were six times more likely to have a hemorrhagic stroke. He says that means hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people are at much greater risk of having a hemorrhagic stroke due to a combination of genes and behavior.

Pregnant Women Told Quit Smoking And We'll Pay You Cash

In what will be seen as a controversial move the National Health Service of the United Kingdom will pay women up to £100 if they can promise to quit smoking completely during their pregnancy.

The scheme will pay the £100 over the term of the pregnancy. They will get £20 after they quit smoking for a week followed by a further £40 if they manage to stay off the cigarettes for a month and if they continue not to smoke for a whole year they will get a further £40 making a total of £100.

They will be given the payment in the form of special Co-op vouchers which can be exchanged for anything except alcohol and cigarettes.

Child cancer link to smoking 'close'

Premature birth, low birth weight and admission to a neonatal intensive care unit were all strongly associated with a mother smoking during pregnancy.

The data was not strong enough to prove a direct link between smoking and childhood cancer. In fact, the raw data showed the reverse effect: cancer was slightly less prevalent among the children of smokers.

But Professor Bishop said that result was not statistically significant, while the other results were much more reliable. To be Continued...

How to reduce your risk of oral thrush

If you use a steroid inhaler to prevent asthma attacks, you can reduce your risk of getting oral thrush by rinsing your mouth out with water and brushing your teeth after using your inhaler. You can also use a device called a spacer to reduce the amount of steroid that stays in your mouth and throat. To find out more, see our articles on asthma in adults or asthma in children. If you wear dentures, make sure that they fit you properly. Your gums may shrink and the shape of your mouth may change as you get older, so your dentures stop fitting as well as they once did. You can have regular dental check-ups to make sure your dentures still fit you properly. Candida can grow on the surface of the dentures, so always keep your dentures clean, especially the surface that's in contact with the roof of your mouth.