A new Lancet study reveals that there are more smokers worldwide than previously thought and that the global tobacco burden may have been underestimated. In the light of these revelations, does India need tighten its anti-tobacco campaign?

The new study says that over half the world's population consumes tobacco. That's around 852 million people worldwide according to the new estimates.

661 million worldwide smoke and 247 million are smokeless tobacco users, 206 million in India alone. China has maximum consumers at an estimated 301 million. India comes next, with 275 million tobacco users.

President, PHFI, Dr Srinath Reddy said, "The new study shows that given the fact that tobacco is going to be centuries number one killer and is still biggest publicly threats, not only do we need strong laws, they need to be effectively implemented and India is an important area in which tobacco control needs to be strict even more."

Dr Nevin Wilson, The Union sad, "One in 10 deaths globally is because of tobacco use and the imperative policy makers to invest in tobacco control."

In a major boost to the fight against tobacco use, Australia will be the first country to implement plain packaging for cigarettes.

But come December, all cigarettes in Australia will be sold in drab looking olive brown packets with big graphic health warnings on them. All brand names will be written in the same generic font. The colours and packaging have been tried and tested, to discourage smokers.

New Zealand, UK, Turkey and even India are thinking on the same lines. And if India follows suite, cigarette packets might be sold in plain grey colours.

Seema Gupta VHAI said, "India definitely needs to adopt plain packaging. And like the market research showed that 80 per cent of respondents said that they will not really initiate if they can't associate with a particular brand they will not even think of smoking and a dull grey colour will have a lot of difference as compared to a bright red, blue or any other colour which normally companies use. A new Lancet study reveals that there are more smokers worldwide than previously thought and that the global tobacco burden may have been underestimated. In the light of these revelations, does India need tighten its anti-tobacco campaign?

The new study says that over half the world's population consumes tobacco. That's around 852 million people worldwide according to the new estimates.

661 million worldwide smoke and 247 million are smokeless tobacco users, 206 million in India alone. China has maximum consumers at an estimated 301 million. India comes next, with 275 million tobacco users.

President, PHFI, Dr Srinath Reddy said, "The new study shows that given the fact that tobacco is going to be centuries number one killer and is still biggest publicly threats, not only do we need strong laws, they need to be effectively implemented and India is an important area in which tobacco control needs to be strict even more."

Dr Nevin Wilson, The Union sad, "One in 10 deaths globally is because of tobacco use and the imperative policy makers to invest in tobacco control."

In a major boost to the fight against tobacco use, Australia will be the first country to implement plain packaging for cigarettes.

But come December, all cigarettes in Australia will be sold in drab looking olive brown packets with big graphic health warnings on them. All brand names will be written in the same generic font. The colours and packaging have been tried and tested, to discourage smokers.

New Zealand, UK, Turkey and even India are thinking on the same lines. And if India follows suite, cigarette packets might be sold in plain grey colours.

Seema Gupta VHAI said, "India definitely needs to adopt plain packaging. And like the market research showed that 80 per cent of respondents said that they will not really initiate if they can't associate with a particular brand they will not even think of smoking and a dull grey colour will have a lot of difference as compared to a bright red, blue or any other colour which normally companies use.

Opposition Leader V S Achuthanandan said that cases should be registered against those responsible for carrying out unethical clinical trials on patients in the state and demanded immediate investigation by a high-level police team into the issue.

He said that by subjecting patients to clinical trial without their prior permission, the private hospital authorities had treated them as guinea pigs. "Reports say that in the past five years, around one lakh patients were subjected to clinical trials. Also, a section of media had reported that around 300 medicines were tested on patients and hundreds of people died owing to clinical trials. If the allegations are found true, then murder charges should be pressed against those responsible," said Achuthanandan.

He also alleged that in the name of free medical camps, some of the private hospitals in the state were carrying out clinical trials on patients and this should also be brought under the ambit of probe.

"Strict rules should be enforced to conduct medical camps by private hospitals so that such incidents won't be repeated in future," he said.

Meanwhile, the State Government has decided to constitute an expert committee to look into charges of unethical clinical trials on patients.

Health Minister V S Sivakumar has asked the health secretary to set up the committee. On Thursday, the police had sealed Health and Research Centre (HRC), a private medical firm near the Medical College Hospital here after the media reports came out, which said that around 47 unethical clinical trials were conducted by the firm without mandatory sanction.

Eating around two handfuls of walnuts a day improves sperm health in young men, a study in the journal Biology of Reproduction suggests.

Sperm shape, movement and vitality improved in men who added walnuts to their diet over 12 weeks.

The fatty acids found in these nuts are thought to have helped sperm development. It is not known if this would help improve male fertility.

About one in six couples are infertile, with 40% of these due to a male factor.

Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield said: "It would be relatively easy to poke fun at studies like this, but there is increasing evidence to show that aspects of a man's diet can affect the number and quality of sperm produced by his testicles."

The researchers say the next step is to work with couples who are attending infertility clinics to determine if placing sub-fertile men, with poor semen quality, on a walnut diet results in better success conceiving.
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Walnuts provide a rich source of omega-3, which we suspect may have been responsible for the improvements we observed."

Catherine Carpenter UCLA Centre for Human Nutrition

It is thought that infertility in men may be a result of too few sperm being made, or that the sperm have poor swimming ability, size or shape.
Walnut supplement

This study involved 117 men between the ages of 21 and 35, who were divided into two groups. One group added 2.6 ounces (75 grams) of whole-shelled walnuts to their daily diet.

The other group continued their usual diet but avoided eating tree nuts. Both groups ate a typical Western-style diet.

Lead author, Prof Wendie Robbins from UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health said: "We found a significant improvement in sperm parameters in the group that consumed the walnuts.
Healthy sperm

"The men who ate no tree nuts saw no change."

Sperm quality improved in terms of concentration, vitality, movement, shape and chromosome abnormalities.

Dr Pacey said: "The study has been well executed and my only criticism would be that the men in the walnut-eating arm of the trial could have altered other aspects of their behaviour to give the results shown in the paper.

"A better trial would be to produce tablets of walnut extract that looked identical to a placebo so that the study was completely blind.

"In spite of this, the results of the study show a small but statistically significant improvement in sperm health."

These benefits may be down to the fatty acids in the nuts.

Co-author Catherine Carpenter, from the UCLA Centre for Human Nutrition said: "Walnuts provide a particularly rich source of a-linolenic acid, a natural plant source of omega-3, which we suspect may have been responsible for the improvements we observed."

The walnuts for the study were supplied by the California Walnut Commission and the study was funded by the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health's Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health.

The Haryana government has prohibited manufacture, storage, sale and distribution of gutkha and paan masala containing tobacco or nicotine as ingredients. The ban came into effect from Wednesday. The order has been issued in public health interest for one year, Commissioner of Food Safety, Haryana, Rakesh Gupta said here.

The Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, enacted by the Centre, prohibits the sale and manufacture of products which are injurious to health, Gupta said. He said under the Act, any person who manufactures for sale, stores, sells, distributes or imports any food which is unsafe, shall be punished.

Meanwhile, speaking at Junagadh in Gujarat,

Chief Minister Narendra Modi said gutkha will be banned in the state from September 11.

"I have to save the youths of Gujarat from the dreaded evil of cancer and that's why a decision to impose a complete ban on gutkha has been taken," Modi said in his Independence Day speech.

The comprehensive ban on sale, stocking, production and distribution of the product shall come into effect from September 11, he said

A study of more than one thousand men and women with heart disease has found depression to be associated with an increased risk of peripheral artery disease (PAD).

PAD is a circulatory problem in which narrowed arteries reduce blood flow to the limbs usually the legs and feet resulting in pain, reduced mobility and, in extreme cases, gangrene and amputation.


Marlene Grenon, MD, CM, a vascular surgeon at San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California (SFVAMC) and an assistant professor of Surgery at UCSF, led the analysis of data from 1,024 participants in the Heart and Soul Study, a prospective study of men and women with coronary artery disease who were followed for an average of approximately seven years.

"We discovered that there was an association between depression and PAD at baseline, and also found that the patients who were depressed at the beginning of the study had a higher likelihood of developing PAD during follow-up at seven years," said Grenon.

The researchers found that some of the risk for PAD was partly explained by modifiable risk factors such as smoking and reduced physical activity.

"We still don't know which comes first. Is it that patients with PAD become depressed because their mobility is impaired, or that people who are depressed engage in unhealthy behaviours such as smoking and lack of exercise, and are thus more at risk of developing PAD? Or might it be a vicious cycle, where one leads to the other? " said Grenon.

Further research is needed to tease out cause and effect, she said.

The study authors suggest that whatever the initial cause, lifestyle modifications such as being more physically active, eating better, quitting smoking and managing stress more effectively might reduce the risk for the association, as well as potentially address symptoms of both PAD and depression.

The study was published last month in the Journal of the American Heart Association.