Global tobacco use prevalence has dropped by one-third, and there are now an estimated 118 million fewer tobacco users in the world today, as compared with 2005, said Dr Adriana Blanco Marquizo, Head of the Secretariat, on Tuesday. She was speaking at a WHO press conference marking the 20th anniversary of the WHO Framework Convention […] Continue reading ->
Alcohol is the third leading cause of cancer in the United States, yet less than half of US citizens polled are aware of its link to cancer, according to the US Surgeon General. To mitigate this, the warning labels on alcoholic beverages should be updated to include the risk of cancer, advised Surgeon General Dr […] Continue reading ->
Israeli researchers were surprised to find that alcohol use, as compared to psychedelics, contributed more significantly to psychological challenges amongst survivors of the October 7, 2023, Nova music festival attack, following a study, conducted by researchers from Sheba Medical Centre and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The study was published in October in World Psychiatry. On […] Continue reading ->
Investing in as little as $0.24 per patient per year in digital health interventions – telemedicine, mobile messaging, and chatbots – could significantly lower the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), says a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union (UTI). These interventions could avert 2 million deaths and 7 […] Continue reading ->
Digital cessation programmes, behavioural support, and medication for tobacco cessation in adults are some of the measures contained in first-ever guidelines to help people quit smoking published recently by the World Health Organization (WHO). One in five adults – 1.25 billion users worldwide – consume various tobacco products such as cigarettes, heated tobacco products, water […] Continue reading ->
Romania, Georgia and Czechia have the highest alcohol consumption rates in the world while, in the best-case scenario, only 14% of those who abuse alcohol have access to treatment. These are some of the insights from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) global status report on alcohol and substance use disorders, based on 2019 data from […] Continue reading ->
A tax on tobacco and alcohol in the Philippines resulted in a sixfold increase in the country’s health budget as well as a drop in consumption of the harmful products, Ted Herbosa, the country’s health secretary, told a meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCD) and financing on Thursday. “It increased the health budget by six times […] Continue reading ->
Just four industries – tobacco, ultra-processed foods (UPFs), fossil fuels, and alcohol – cause over a third of all deaths globally each year, according to a new report from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional Office for Europe. Not only are these industries driving ill health and premature mortality across Europe and Central Asia, but […] Continue reading ->
The tobacco industry is deliberately targeting children with nicotine products, using targeted marketing to lure the younger generation into smoking while publicly promoting e-cigarettes as a less harmful alternative for smokers, according to a new report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and STOP, a tobacco industry watchdog. The report, released ahead of World No-Tobacco […] Continue reading ->
A $3-million “educational” deal between tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) and Medscape, a medical education provider for healthcare professionals, has been abandoned after the BMJ and The Examination exposed it last month. The deal involved a PMI grant to Medscape to fund continuing medical education (CME) accredited courses on smoking cessation for doctors and […] Continue reading ->