Tobacco and infertility: An overlooked public health challenge - World Health Organization (WHO)

Among medically underserved adults referred for lung cancer screening, the rates of sustained tobacco abstinence are higher with financial incentives versus usual care with or without free pharmacotherapy. HealthDay News — Among medically underserved adults referred for lung cancer screening, the rates of sustained tobacco abstinence are higher with financial incentives versus usual care with or without free pharmacotherapy, according to a study published online Oct. 5 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Major tobacco-tax reforms in several emerging economies have sharply increased cigarette prices and helped drive down smoking, offering powerful lessons for countries seeking to protect health, raise revenue and advance the World Health Organization’s 3 by 35 Initiative. A new independent analysis of 15 countries finds that every country made improvements to cigarette taxation between 2009 and 2025. The strongest results came where governments acted boldly, substantially raising taxes, simplifying tax systems and preventing cigarettes from becoming more affordable as incomes rose. WHO urges countries to use health taxes to increase the real prices of tobacco, alcohol and sugary drinks by 2035. The 3 by 35 Initiative aims to reduce consumption of products that drive noncommunicable diseases and injuries, while generating resources that governments can invest in health and development. “The evidence is clear: when governments make harmful products significantly more expensive, people consume less, lives are saved and public revenues rise,” said Dr Etienne Krug, Director, Department of Health Determinants, Promotion and Prevention, WHO.

Brown fat (shown here in a light-microscopy image) burns calories to generate heat. Credit: Ziad M. El-Zaatari/Science Photo LibraryWhen people think of fat, they typically picture the jiggly tissue around the belly that stores extra calories. That’s white fat. But there’s another type, called brown fat, that does the opposite. Typically found around the neck, armpits and in the chest, brown fat burns calories to generate heat and has been linked to health benefits. Fat cells have a ‘memory’ of obesity — hinting at why it’s hard to keep weight offA study of more than 100,000 people — the largest of its kind — is now expanding that list of benefits. It revealed that people with ‘active’ brown fat are less affected by a number of health issues, including type 2 diabetes, depression and anxiety, than are those without it. Researchers used an artificial-intelligence model to quantify, from scans, the participants’ active brown fat, which is fat that is ‘turned on’ and burning calories. They concluded that the more active brown fat people have, the greater the protection they have from disorders and diseases. The findings were published today in Nature1.

For decades, researchers have invested billions of dollars in Alzheimer's treatments designed to target amyloid beta, a peptide that forms harmful deposits in the brain. But a biochemist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, believes scientists may have overlooked another potential contributor to the disease: a smaller, closely related peptide that was long considered harmless. In a new commentary published in ChemBioChem, UC Santa Cruz professor Jevgenij Raskatov highlights research suggesting that this lesser-known peptide, called P3, can form microscopic clumps and threadlike structures known as fibrils. Evidence also suggests that P3 may interact with amyloid beta (Aβ), potentially influencing how it accumulates in the brain and how toxic it becomes. These findings raise the possibility that P3 contributes to the nerve cell damage associated with Alzheimer's disease.