Pregnancy and smoking
Pregnancy is about creating a new life, but ultimately it is the mother's judgement whether or not to continue smoking for the sake of her unborn child. Pregnancy can be a powerful impetus to give up smoking, because you're making this choice on behalf of your unborn child who is completely dependent on the mother.
Pre-pregnancy
Both female and male smokers have lower fertility levels, while adults who were born to mothers who smoked have less chance of becoming a parent themselves. Smoking also reduces the probabilities of IVF succeeding.
It's thought nicotine reduces a woman's fertility by affecting the production of hormones that are necessary for pregnancy. Smoking also impedes the transportation of the egg through the Fallopian tubes to the womb.
Male smokers tend to have a sperm count that is 15 per cent lower than that of non-smokers. Smoking can also reduce the amount of semen, harm the motility of sperm, i.e. their ability to move around and affect their shape.
Smoking can also affect the blood vessels that supply the penis, causing erection complications.
Quitting smoking will increase one’s ability to conceive and success with IVF.
Smoking in pregnancy
It is never too late to stop smoking. Every cigarette you decide not to smoke will help your and baby's health.
Much of the damage caused by smoking can be reversed because your body is a living organism that has the ability to heal itself.
Women who stopped smoking at the halfway point in their pregnancy gave birth to babies with the same average weight as women who had not smoked at all during pregnancy.
You may be tempted just to cut down, but many smokers find they inhale more deeply when smoking fewer cigarettes. So though the number of cigarettes decreases, the intake of damaging substances doesn't because residues are concentrated towards the butt.
Other studies show that even moderate cigarette smoking is damaging to the foetus, making quitting the most important thing you can do to improve your and baby's health.
A baby in the womb gets everything from its mother. Nutrients and oxygen come via the placenta and umbilical cord. Smoking not only exposes the foetus to toxins in tobacco smoke, but it also damages placental function.
When a person smokes, some of the oxygen in their blood is substituted by carbon monoxide. Likewise, if a pregnant woman smokes, her blood and consequently her child's blood will comprise less oxygen than usual. This can cause the foetal heart rate to rise as baby struggles to get adequate oxygen from mother.
Numerous poisonous substances in tobacco smoke change the blood's ability to work in a healthy and normal manner. This can affect the placenta that feeds the baby.
Smoking harms even unborn baby
Babies born to mothers who smoke are supposed to have the following symptoms:
• Likely to be born prematurely with a low birth weight. The more the mother smokes, the less the child weighs proportionately.
• Have organs that are smaller on average than babies born to non-smokers.
• Have poorer lung function.
• Are twice as likely to die from cot death. There seems to be a direct link between cot death and parents smoking.
• Are ill more frequently. Babies born to women who smoked 15 cigarettes or more a day during pregnancy are taken into hospital twice as often during the first eight months of life.
• Get painful diseases such as inflammation of the middle ear and asthmatic bronchitis more frequently in early childhood.
Further, pregnant women who smoke increase their risk of early miscarriage.
In later pregnancy, smoking mothers are at increased risk of the baby's placenta coming away from the womb before the baby is born (placental abruption). This may cause the baby to be born prematurely, starve of oxygen, or even to die in the womb (stillborn).
How to stop smoking
One can get support and advice about stopping smoking from your midwife, gynaecologist. Evidence shows that counselling by qualified health specialists can be twofold effective to abandon smoking for pregnant women.
Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) should not preferably be used by pregnant women as directed by physician to stop smoking. But for the heavy smokers, who are unable to give up using willpower alone, NRT will deliver less nicotine than cigarettes and none of the other disease-causing agents, eg tar. Women should only use NRT while pregnancy only after carefully discussing all the risks and benefits with their consultant.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
The more you smoke – The more is the risk of breast cancer
Smoking is a controversial lifestyle factor that has been tied to increased breast cancer risk. Studies have yet to decisively prove a link between tobacco smoke and breast cancer, but evidence is piling up.
Most studies have found no link between cigarette smoking and breast cancer. Though the link between smoking and cancers, in general, is indisputable. That smoke contains cancer-causing substances that are absorbed into your body and affect one’s health. The scientists say that tobacco smoke contains numerous potentially harmful substances, including nitrogen oxides, volatile aldehydes, alkenes, and aromatic hydrocarbons, which may act differently and at different stages in the development of breast cancer.
Here are just a few of the 3,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke that are related to cancer:
• Tar – a sticky substance that will be created as tobacco burns. Inhaling while smoking pulls tar into your lungs, where it accrues over time and causes tissue annihilation.
• Nicotine – an exceptionally addictive drug that helps cancers grow. It does not cause cancer, but it can stimulate cancer cell development.
• Nitrosamine – a carcinogenic compound vastly used in cosmetics, processed meats, pesticides, and latex goods.
Studies do show some suggestive links between smoking and breast cancer:
• Second-hand (passive) smoke may increase risk in younger, premenopausal women.
• Teenagers who smoke are more possible to develop breast cancer before menopause.
• Active smoking is linked to aggressive, hormone receptor-negative (HR-) type breast cancer.
• Smoking may promote the spread of breast cancer to your lungs too.
An active focus of research is whether second-hand smoke increases the risk of breast cancer. Both mainstream and second-hand smoke contains chemicals that, in high concentrations, cause breast cancer in rodents. Chemicals in tobacco smoke reaches breast tissue and contaminates even breast milk causing harm to the child.
The evidence on second-hand smoke and breast cancer risk in human studies is controversial, at least in part because smokers have not been shown to be at increased risk. One possible explanation for this is that tobacco smoke may have different effects on breast cancer risk in smokers and in those who are just exposed to smoke.
Modern researches reveal that risk of breast cancer was 60% higher for women who had smoked for 40 years or longer than that of women who had never smoked. Among those who smoked 20 cigarettes or more a day for 40 years, the increased risk rose to 83%. Women who smoke for many years may increase their risk of developing breast cancer. The researchers said that those women who had smoked 20 cigarettes a day or more have proportionate association between smoking and breast cancer risk.
Evidence Relates Smoking to Breast Cancer
In a Swedish study, hormone receptor-negative (HR-) type breast cancer - which is more aggressive and harder to treat, was found to be more common in current and former smokers, The American Cancer Society says.
Researchers at the University of California-Davis Medical Centre found that cigarette smoking was associated with spread of breast cancer to the lungs. Those patients also had higher fatality rates.
Nitrosamine, an ingredient in cigarettes, may be the cause of this effect. A study published in Cancer Research shows that the tobacco-specific nitrosamine NNK may cause genetic mutations in breast tissue in female smokers and females exposed to second-hand smoke. Carcinogenic compounds can be stored in fatty tissue in your breast and have been found in breast fluid of women who smoke.
Findings suggest that smoking of very long duration and high intensity may be associated with increased risk of breast cancer. Albert Einstein College of Medicine researchers, from, Bronx, New York, examined the association between cigarette smoking and incidence of breast cancer in a cohort of women who had smoked for up to 40 years at recruitment in the early 1980s.
The research, using data from almost 90000 women in the Canadian national breast screening study, found that smoking intensity, smoking duration, years since smoking started, and pack years of cigarette consumption had positive associations with breast cancer risk. But age at which smoking began and years since quitting among former smokers were not clearly associated with risk.
The study found that women who had smoked either at least one pack of cigarettes a day for 40 years or at least two packs a day for 20 years were at noticeably higher risk than women who accrued the same number of pack years over a shorter duration.
The risk in association with duration of smoking years since smoking commencement and years since quitting, suggest that smoking may act primarily as an initiator rather than as a promoter of breast cancer, as has been hypothesised with respect to colorectal cancer.
Bottom Line: Stop Smoking, Lower Your Risk
If you smoke tobacco, the substances in tobacco smoke are deposited in your tissues and cause damage, some of which may open the door to damage even your genes too. It will take years to recover a lower level of risk for developing breast cancer if you stop smoke. Still, those are years that may be further to your life.
Tobacco smoke carries carcinogens, which can accumulate in fluid around the breasts. Aggressive smoking can hugely raise the risk of breast cancer. The evidence is piling up for a link between smoking and breast cancer. It's another good reason to stop smoking.
Pregnancy and breastfeeding combined with regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, and avoiding alcohol can help lower your risk. Both pregnancy and breast-feeding reduce a woman's total number of lifetime menstrual cycles, and thus helps lower the risk. Having children before age 30 also reduces the risk of breast cancer.
Most studies have found no link between cigarette smoking and breast cancer. Though the link between smoking and cancers, in general, is indisputable. That smoke contains cancer-causing substances that are absorbed into your body and affect one’s health. The scientists say that tobacco smoke contains numerous potentially harmful substances, including nitrogen oxides, volatile aldehydes, alkenes, and aromatic hydrocarbons, which may act differently and at different stages in the development of breast cancer.
Here are just a few of the 3,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke that are related to cancer:
• Tar – a sticky substance that will be created as tobacco burns. Inhaling while smoking pulls tar into your lungs, where it accrues over time and causes tissue annihilation.
• Nicotine – an exceptionally addictive drug that helps cancers grow. It does not cause cancer, but it can stimulate cancer cell development.
• Nitrosamine – a carcinogenic compound vastly used in cosmetics, processed meats, pesticides, and latex goods.
Studies do show some suggestive links between smoking and breast cancer:
• Second-hand (passive) smoke may increase risk in younger, premenopausal women.
• Teenagers who smoke are more possible to develop breast cancer before menopause.
• Active smoking is linked to aggressive, hormone receptor-negative (HR-) type breast cancer.
• Smoking may promote the spread of breast cancer to your lungs too.
An active focus of research is whether second-hand smoke increases the risk of breast cancer. Both mainstream and second-hand smoke contains chemicals that, in high concentrations, cause breast cancer in rodents. Chemicals in tobacco smoke reaches breast tissue and contaminates even breast milk causing harm to the child.
The evidence on second-hand smoke and breast cancer risk in human studies is controversial, at least in part because smokers have not been shown to be at increased risk. One possible explanation for this is that tobacco smoke may have different effects on breast cancer risk in smokers and in those who are just exposed to smoke.
Modern researches reveal that risk of breast cancer was 60% higher for women who had smoked for 40 years or longer than that of women who had never smoked. Among those who smoked 20 cigarettes or more a day for 40 years, the increased risk rose to 83%. Women who smoke for many years may increase their risk of developing breast cancer. The researchers said that those women who had smoked 20 cigarettes a day or more have proportionate association between smoking and breast cancer risk.
Evidence Relates Smoking to Breast Cancer
In a Swedish study, hormone receptor-negative (HR-) type breast cancer - which is more aggressive and harder to treat, was found to be more common in current and former smokers, The American Cancer Society says.
Researchers at the University of California-Davis Medical Centre found that cigarette smoking was associated with spread of breast cancer to the lungs. Those patients also had higher fatality rates.
Nitrosamine, an ingredient in cigarettes, may be the cause of this effect. A study published in Cancer Research shows that the tobacco-specific nitrosamine NNK may cause genetic mutations in breast tissue in female smokers and females exposed to second-hand smoke. Carcinogenic compounds can be stored in fatty tissue in your breast and have been found in breast fluid of women who smoke.
Findings suggest that smoking of very long duration and high intensity may be associated with increased risk of breast cancer. Albert Einstein College of Medicine researchers, from, Bronx, New York, examined the association between cigarette smoking and incidence of breast cancer in a cohort of women who had smoked for up to 40 years at recruitment in the early 1980s.
The research, using data from almost 90000 women in the Canadian national breast screening study, found that smoking intensity, smoking duration, years since smoking started, and pack years of cigarette consumption had positive associations with breast cancer risk. But age at which smoking began and years since quitting among former smokers were not clearly associated with risk.
The study found that women who had smoked either at least one pack of cigarettes a day for 40 years or at least two packs a day for 20 years were at noticeably higher risk than women who accrued the same number of pack years over a shorter duration.
The risk in association with duration of smoking years since smoking commencement and years since quitting, suggest that smoking may act primarily as an initiator rather than as a promoter of breast cancer, as has been hypothesised with respect to colorectal cancer.
Bottom Line: Stop Smoking, Lower Your Risk
If you smoke tobacco, the substances in tobacco smoke are deposited in your tissues and cause damage, some of which may open the door to damage even your genes too. It will take years to recover a lower level of risk for developing breast cancer if you stop smoke. Still, those are years that may be further to your life.
Tobacco smoke carries carcinogens, which can accumulate in fluid around the breasts. Aggressive smoking can hugely raise the risk of breast cancer. The evidence is piling up for a link between smoking and breast cancer. It's another good reason to stop smoking.
Pregnancy and breastfeeding combined with regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, and avoiding alcohol can help lower your risk. Both pregnancy and breast-feeding reduce a woman's total number of lifetime menstrual cycles, and thus helps lower the risk. Having children before age 30 also reduces the risk of breast cancer.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Ascentis – A new Gateway beyond TOEFL
Anglia Language Testing Centre (ALTC) has introduced Anglia AcCEPT Proficiency Test in India. This is an alternative English Language Test to test the verbal abilities for students & immigrants. The AcCEPT is explicitly designed for non-native English speakers requiring English for educational purposes.
The score is widely accepted by leading international universities and colleges around the world. AcCEPT proficiency is listed on the UCAS (Universities & Colleges Admissions Service) as a qualification which can be accepted by British universities and colleges to show international student competence in English Language.
The total time for the test is 3 hours and 20 minutes in which AcCEPT measures all four language skills – listening, reading, writing and speaking and the results are reported as three passing grades—distinction, merit and pass, with one failing grade. Speaking section is not mandatory but listening, reading and writing are compulsory sections. When taken, speaking constitutes 20% of the grade while listening skills always contribute to 20% of the total grade.
The certificates are valid indefinitely. However, institutions may wish the candidates to re-take the test if a significant period has lapsed since the last one.
Anglia Examinations, England owned by a non-profit educational establishment, has specialized in ESOL assessments for 15 years. Every year, the organisation examines over 40,000 aspirants from 28 countries across Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia.
Ascentis is a national qualification awarding Body accepted by the English regulatory bodies to design, administer and award qualifications to national standards. Ascentis was established in 1975 and is now an independent limited company in the United Kingdom. It was formerly known as OCNW – Open College of the North West.
The score is widely accepted by leading international universities and colleges around the world. AcCEPT proficiency is listed on the UCAS (Universities & Colleges Admissions Service) as a qualification which can be accepted by British universities and colleges to show international student competence in English Language.
The total time for the test is 3 hours and 20 minutes in which AcCEPT measures all four language skills – listening, reading, writing and speaking and the results are reported as three passing grades—distinction, merit and pass, with one failing grade. Speaking section is not mandatory but listening, reading and writing are compulsory sections. When taken, speaking constitutes 20% of the grade while listening skills always contribute to 20% of the total grade.
The certificates are valid indefinitely. However, institutions may wish the candidates to re-take the test if a significant period has lapsed since the last one.
Anglia Examinations, England owned by a non-profit educational establishment, has specialized in ESOL assessments for 15 years. Every year, the organisation examines over 40,000 aspirants from 28 countries across Latin America, Africa, Europe and Asia.
Ascentis is a national qualification awarding Body accepted by the English regulatory bodies to design, administer and award qualifications to national standards. Ascentis was established in 1975 and is now an independent limited company in the United Kingdom. It was formerly known as OCNW – Open College of the North West.
Monday, February 22, 2010
UK Academic Visas Temporarily Suspended
The UK Border Agency had taken steps against approval of Indian student visas and temporarily suspended accepting submissions at New Delhi, Chandigarh and Jalandhar visa application centres, under Tier 4 of the points based system to counter the flow of fresh applications with effect from February 1, 2010. This is the measure taken by British Government to protect genuine applicants and righteous education providers from crooked personalities.
Even though they have stopped accepting visas temporarily from North India, British High Commissioner, Mr. Richard Stagg said that He is very much interested having the presence of Indian students in UK. Though, some evil inclined applicants are taking this opportunity by exploiting the vulnerabilities in our visa processing system. To counter these methods and to protect the real learning enthusiasts, we have taken this inevitable practice.
Further, applicants who had appointments for their Tier 4 visas from February 1, 2010, will be suspended until the next announcement by UK Border Agency. However, Visa application centres in west and south India will remain open for Tier 4 visa applications.
published in:
http://edunol.com/announcement/uk-academic-visas-temporarily-suspended.html
Even though they have stopped accepting visas temporarily from North India, British High Commissioner, Mr. Richard Stagg said that He is very much interested having the presence of Indian students in UK. Though, some evil inclined applicants are taking this opportunity by exploiting the vulnerabilities in our visa processing system. To counter these methods and to protect the real learning enthusiasts, we have taken this inevitable practice.
Further, applicants who had appointments for their Tier 4 visas from February 1, 2010, will be suspended until the next announcement by UK Border Agency. However, Visa application centres in west and south India will remain open for Tier 4 visa applications.
published in:
http://edunol.com/announcement/uk-academic-visas-temporarily-suspended.html
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