Drink a Little Wine, Live a Little Longer

(HealthDay News) -- Men who regularly drank up to a half a glass of wine each day boosted their life expectancy by five years, Dutch researchers report.

Light, long-term alcohol consumption of all types of beverages, whether wine, spirits or beer, increased life by 2.5 years among men compared with abstention, the researchers found. By "light," they meant up to 20 grams, or about 0.7 ounces a day.
While numerous other studies have found similar benefits, study author Martinette Streppel, of the division of human nutrition at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, said 40 years of follow-up is noteworthy for many reasons.

"The main strength of our study was the collection of detailed information on the consumption of different alcohol beverages at each of seven measurement rounds," Streppel said.

The long-term, regular follow-up, Streppel added, enabled the researchers to study the effect of long-term alcohol intake on mortality.

The study is published online in April in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The Dutch researchers evaluated 1,373 men, all part of the Zutphen Study, started in 1960 and named for an industrial town in the Netherlands. The researchers followed them from 1960 to 2000, tracking weight, diet, cigarette smoking, the diagnosis of serious illness and other data, along with their drinking habits.

Over the follow-up period, 1,130 of the men died, half from cardiovascular disease.

The proportion of men who drank alcohol nearly doubled from 45 percent of the men in 1960 to 86 percent in 2000. Those drinking wine rose even more dramatically -- from just 2 percent to 44 percent.

The findings in more detail:

• All long-term light alcohol drinking boosted life expectancy by about 2.5 years in comparison to abstainers. Drinking more than 0.7 ounces a day extended life expectancy by nearly two years compared with nondrinkers.
• Wine drinkers who averaged just 0.7 ounces a day had a 2.5 year-longer life expectancy at age 50 compared to those who drank beer or spirits. And their life expectancy was nearly five years longer than nondrinkers.
• Drinking moderately was linked with lower death risk, and drinking wine was strongly linked with a lower risk of dying from heart disease, stroke or other causes.

Streppel couldn't say if the findings apply to women, but suspects the polyphenolic compounds found in wine, especially red wine, produce the heart-healthy effects.

The study adds to the literature of the health benefits of alcohol, but has both strengths and weaknesses, said Dr. Arthur Klatsky, a long-time investigator on the health benefits of alcohol.

"Once again, it shows that people who drink [moderately] do a lot better than people who don't in terms of survival," he said.

However, as with other research, Klatsky wondered if it's the pattern of drinking or something related to the wine drinking -- such as wine drinkers being more likely to exercise or eat a healthy diet -- that is the real link.

In the new Dutch study, he says, alcohol from spirits contributes the most to the total alcohol intake, more than wine or beer.

"It's a little hard to think that a little bit of wine is what is responsible for extending their life," Klatsky said.

The finding, like similar ones, applies more to middle-aged people than younger ones, he said. "People over 50 are the ones most likely to have health benefits from light drinking anyways."

Much more important in reducing heart disease risk, he said, is not smoking, exercising regularly, eating healthfully and maintaining a healthy weight.

More information

For more on the health benefits of wine, visit the American Dietetic Association.

Health Tip: Using a Nicotine Patch

(HealthDay News) -- If you've opted for a nicotine patch to help you quit smoking, it's important to know how to use it correctly.




The American Academy of Family Physicians offers these suggestions on how to use the patch:

• Leave the package closed until you are ready to use the product. When ready, open the package, peel off the patch's backing, and don't touch the sticky side of the patch.
• Clean and dry an area of skin on your upper body on which to apply the patch. Don't put it on an area that is hairy, burned, sore or has a cut.
• Place the patch (sticky side down) on your skin, smooth it out flat, and hold it for 10 seconds. Always wash your hands immediately after handling the patch. Otherwise, nicotine from the patch could irritate your eyes or nose.
• Only wear the patch for the time noted on the package -- not longer.
• When you remove the patch, fold it over so that it sticks together, and dispose of it in a way that's safe from children or pets.
• Put the patch on a different area of skin each day. You can use the same area after waiting one week.

Smoking Makes You Old Before Your Time

(HealthDay News) -- Everyone knows smoking isn't good for you, but now Finnish researchers report that men who smoke not only die younger but they have a poorer quality of life than those who never smoked.

This deterioration in quality of life continues even after quitting. In fact, heavy smokers typically have the health-related quality of life of someone 10 years older than themselves, the researchers said.

"An especially large negative effect was seen for heavy smokers [more than 20 cigarettes daily], who lost about 10 years of their life expectancy, and those who survived experienced a significant decline in their quality of life," said lead researcher Dr. Arto Y. Strandberg, from the University of Helsinki.

The report was published in the Oct. 13 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

For the study, Strandberg's team collected data on 1,658 men born between 1919 and 1934 and interviewed in 1974. Over 26 years of follow-up, 372 men had died. Men who had never smoked lived an average of 10 years longer than men who smoked more than 20 cigarettes a day, the researchers found.

Non-smokers also scored better on quality-of-life measures, compared with smokers. "Especially significant differences were seen in physical functioning, general health, vitality and bodily pain," Strandberg said. "The impairment of the physical functioning score of smokers was equal to a 10-year age difference in the general population."

Quality of life was worse even among men who stopped smoking. "On the individual level, the bad news is that while beneficial compared to continued smoking, cessation of smoking after midlife could not fully recover the higher risk in mortality and poorer health-related quality of life seen in smokers," Strandberg said.

"Smoking is not only a risk factor for future illness or death, it is present in the smokers' everyday life," Strandberg said. "The earlier one quits, the better; the best option being not to start at all."

Dr. David M. Burns, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and author of an accompanying journal editorial, said that smoking is no way to live.

"Many folks, particularly young folks, say, 'I want to live now, and I don't care if I die early when I'm old -- I really want to live hard, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse,'" Burns said. "That's not what smoking does to you. What happens is it makes you old before your time."

Smoking does not enhance your lifestyle, Burns added. "What it is, is a route to an early old age."

Three additional reports in the same journal issue reviewed hospital programs that help people quit smoking and concluded that:

• Counseling patients on stopping smoking can be effective if there is follow-up for more than a month after hospital discharge, according to a Harvard report.
• Hospital smoking cessation programs included in referrals to cardiac rehab appear to increase the rates of quitting, according to researchers from Emory University in Atlanta.
• Paying clinics $5,000 to refer 50 patients to quit line programs appears to increase the number of referrals compared with clinics not offered the incentive, according to University of Minnesota scientists.

More information

For more on smoking, visit the National Institutes of Health.

Long-Term Exposure to Incense Raises Cancer Risk

(HealthDay News) -- Exposure to burning incense over long periods of time raises the risk of developing cancers of the upper respiratory tract, a new study shows.

Interestingly, the practice did not increase the overall risk of lung cancer.

"Given that our results are backed by numerous experimental studies showing that incense is a powerful producer of particulate matter and that incense smoke contains carcinogenic substances, I believe incense should be used with caution," said study author Dr. Jeppe Friborg, of the department of epidemiology research at Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. "That is, frequent use in rooms where people live should be minimized, or at least sufficient ventilation should be secured. In our study, we find the increased risk of cancer to be present in individuals reporting frequent use of incense for many years, thus, repeated exposure for years should probably be avoided."

Others echoed the thought.

"The American Lung Association is going to add it as a risk factor," said Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer of the association. "It's not nearly the danger of smoking a pack a day for 20 years, but it's a danger."

Not only is incense burned regularly as part of daily life in large swaths of Asia, the practice is also popular among certain segments in the West.

Incense burning produces particulate matter and is known to contain possible carcinogens such as polyaromatic hyodrcarbons (PAHs), carbonyls and benzene.

There have also been reports linking the burning of incense with cancer but the results have been inconsistent.

For this study, researchers conducted face-to-face interviews with more than 61,000 Singapore Chinese aged 45 to 74 who were cancer-free at the beginning of the study.

Incense burning almost doubled the risk of developing squamous cell upper respiratory tract carcinomas including nasal/sinus, tongue, mouth and laryngeal. There was an increased risk both in smokers and in nonsmokers, pointing to an independent effect of incense smoke.

There was no overall increased risk of lung cancer, but it did heighten the risk of squamous cell carcinoma of the lung.

Will incense go the way of tobacco? Not necessarily, said some experts.

"Certainly I think bathing yourself in particles is probably not the smartest thing in the world . . . but I think very few people fill up their room with incense," said Dr. Arthur Frankel, a professor of medicine at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and director of the Cancer Center, Cancer Research Institute and Division of Hematology/Oncology at Scott & White in Temple.

The findings, which are in the Oct. 1 issue of Cancer, might also point researchers toward other household practices that should be investigated.

"It's a population-based study, which means that you can make an association but not necessarily a conclusion," said Dr. Erin Fleener, a clinical assistant professor in internal medicine at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and an oncologist at the Bryan-College Station Cancer Clinic. "It probably promotes more work in the area of routine household items and things we need to be looking at more prospectively to make a clear cause-and-effect relationship."

In general, though, it's not a bad idea to avoid environmental pollutants of various types.

"Anything that affects air quality negatively is not a good thing," said Dr. Len Horvitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "Burning in general and the release of smoke, these things are certainly to be avoided. At the very least, chemical irritants will set off asthma, and that's reversible. Cancer is not reversible."

"This is not unlike the type of risk that one experiences from secondhand tobacco smoke," said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. "At the end of the day, people who use incense casually, I don't think that's a cause for major concern, but those cultures which embrace incense as part of their daily lifestyles have to consider this has a real potential risk for cancer."

More information
Visit the National Cancer Institute for more on respiratory cancers.