Smoking hazardous to your bones!
Posted by on May 4, 2013 - 12:34pm

Women who smoke have weaker bones than women who don’t. And a study indicates that’s also the case for teenage girls, who may be setting themselves up for weaker bones as they get old according to research Larah Dorn of Cincinnati Children's Hospital where she followed this data on 262 health girls..

The researchers say girls who entered adolescence had about the same bone density whether or not they smoked, but the girls who smoked more had gained less bone at the end of adolescence.  Dorn says that’s especially important because the teen years are crucial for building bone for adulthood:

“You’re really laying what we think is an important foundation for bone health across the lifespan of a woman.”

The study in the Journal of Adolescent Health was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at healthfinder.gov.

 

Smoking teens can get text help to stop
Posted by on January 29, 2012 - 10:58am

Teens who start smoking could smoke more over their lifetimes– which may be made shorter as a result. It’s a good reason to quit.

But teen smoking expert Dr.Yvonne Hunt of the National Institutes of Health says quit programs are often designed for adults, and teens are not little adults – they think and talk differently, and have different smoking patterns.

So Hunt and her coworkers developed a tool to help teens quit. Teens spend a lot of time texting, so SmokefreeTXT sends six weeks of teen-friendly texts to their cellphones. Teens can register at teen.smokefree.gov.

"If teens want to enroll on the go, using their mobile phone, they can also text "QUIT" – Q-U-I-T – to the shortcode "IQUIT," which is 47848."

Of particular concern are the increasing number of young girls starting to smoke compared to young boys.   ALERT:   Young ladies who start smoking, you might think you look cool now but you won't look so cool when you get older and are walking around with an oxygen tank!  Quit while you are ahead!