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Shropshire | Elderly man dies in bungalow fire 

An elderly man who died in a bungalow fire may have been smoking late at night, the fire service has said.

Firefighters were called to the blaze in Yeaton, near Baschurch in Shropshire, about 2300 GMT on Friday.

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St. Paul records lowest fire death rate in over 20 years 

The city of St. Paul says there was only one fire death recorded in 2008, the lowest rate in 22 years.

The fatality occurred on Aug. 10 when an 86-year-old woman died after smoking in bed.

City officials said that while even one fatality is too many, it is the lowest number of fire deaths in St. Paul since 1986.

"The widespread use and maintenance of smoke detectors has helped a lot . . .

Careless smoking is the lead cause of fatal fires in Minnesota. To address that serious problem, state legislature enacted a law requiring that all cigarettes sold in Minnesota be 'fire standard compliant.'

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• Authority: No smoking with oxygen  

A fire in September that resulted in third-degree burns to a Fairview Hills resident has led the Altoona Housing Authority to formally prohibit smoking in rooms containing equipment for supplemental oxygen.

Several residents complained to Executive Director Cheryl Johns that the prohibition would be unfair, but none showed up at the recent meeting where the board adopted the policy.

The authority has the right to adopt the policy to protect itself from lawsuits, solicitor Bill Haberstroh said.

The Fairview Hills woman was smoking in bed while inhaling oxygen, with an ashtray on the mattress, according to city fire marshal Randy Isenberg. . . .

The authority evicted her after the fire, but several other residents who use supplemental oxygen continued to smoke in their apartments, according to Johns. . . .

The authority, which is writing the prohibition into leases, will evict violators immediately for one transgression.

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Woman, 85, dies in apartment fire 

An 85-year-old woman died Thursday of smoke inhalation following a small apartment fire in a seniors' home in Montreal.

Three other residents of the building in the St. Laurent borough were taken to hospital, also to be treated for smoke inhalation.

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Lit cigarette possibly ignited deadly Montreal apartment fire: police 

An 85-year-old Montreal woman died in an apartment fire after apparently falling asleep with a lit cigarette in her hand.

Montreal police spokesman Raphael Bergeron says emergency personnel evacuated several floors of the senior's residence in the city's St-Laurent borough.

He says the woman may have fallen asleep in her 7th-floor bedroom while smoking a cigarette.

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Scientist studies effects of heavy smoking and drinking  

The party never stops for mice in Todd Wyatt's laboratory at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where researchers hope to learn how chronic heavy drinking and smoking often inflicts a double whammy on lungs.

The drinking water for some mice there is 40 proof, raising blood alcohol to the point they can't legally be at the wheel. The mice also smoke the equivalent of a pack a day, based on blood cotinine levels.

They lack only some Texas hold 'em tables and a country western jukebox, but sacrifices must be made to serious science.

Wyatt, a Ph.D researcher, hopes the five-year, $1.5 million study will explain everybody's apocryphal uncle Joe -- the relative who smokes and drinks daily, even on his 87th birthday.

Wyatt said whenever he talks about his research, someone always brings up uncle Joe.

Understanding what makes Joe immune to lung disease could lead to better treatments for COPD -- chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, an incurable syndrome afflicting 40 million people and for which there are no good treatments.

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Smoking likely led to deadly Mpls. house fire 

An 89-year-old Minneapolis man died early Wednesday morning after a large fire broke out in his home.

According to Minneapolis police, John Legierski called 911 to report the fire at his home at 4125 Portland Avenue South around 1 a.m. He talked with the dispatcher until he suddenly became unresponsive. . . .

Police believe the fire was a result of careless smoking. The man was seen smoking a cigar earlier in the night by his son.

"He was on the porch smoking a cigar and I'm sure he didn't put it out," Tom said.

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RIVERVIEW: Bedridden smoker's cigarette was likely cause of fire  

Careless smoking caused a fire Thanksgiving Day that killed a man and injured up to 10 residents of Bellaire Independent Senior Apartments, Fire Chief Timothy Bosman said.

Ralph Dyer, 68, died of soot and smoke inhalation, authorities said.

The injured were among 85 residents evacuated from the complex at 12621 Hale St. by the Riverview Fire Department with the assistance of fire and police personnel from nine other communities.

Bosman said the source of the fire was a cigarette smoked by a bedridden 86-year-old woman. She was badly burned and is hospitalized.

"Smoking in bed is not a wise thing," Bosman said.

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Lung Cancer Devastating for Senior Citizens but Steady Decline in Diagnoses 1995 to 2006 

Hospital admissions for lung cancer remained relatively stable – at roughly 150,000 a year between 1995 and 2006 – despite a steady decline in the number of Americans diagnosed with the disease, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Still, the American Cancer Society says it will be the biggest cancer killer in 2008.

Cancer was the second-leading cause of death in the United States in 2006, and among all cancers, lung cancer had the highest death rate - more than colon, breast, and prostate cancers combined.

Smoking is considered a main cause of lung cancer, yet an estimated 10−15 percent of cases each year occur in non-smokers. The disease can also result from a number of other behavioral, environmental, and hereditary factors, including exposure to hazardous substances such as asbestos and radon, pollution, second-hand smoke, or a genetic predisposition to, or family history of lung cancer.

Admissions have remained constant, in part, because lung cancer patients are surviving longer and undergoing more hospital-related treatments such as chemotherapy and tumor-removal surgery, according to AHRQ experts.

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Smoking Compromises Quality-of-Life in Old Age 

Smoking doesn't just shorten your lifespan, new research indicates. It makes the years you do have less enjoyable.

University of Helsinki researchers followed a group of 1658 men for 26 years, and found that those who smoked 20 or more cigarettes a day (heavy smokers) had far more difficulty later in life than non-smokers, even if they quit smoking during the study period. Never-smokers, meanwhile, lived 10 years longer and enjoyed a better quality-of-life in their later years than heavy smokers.

The men were all white and of the same socioeconomic status, born between 1919 and 1934, and of good health at the start of the study. The researchers, led by Arto Y. Strandberg, M.D., evaluated the men's physical and emotional health in 1974, and again 26 years later, in 2000.

The researchers saw the greatest difference in the physical functioning between those who had never smoked and heavy smokers. The heavy smokers had the physical functioning of men 10 years older when compared to the non-smokers. What's more, the nonsmokers lived about 10 years longer. . . .

"Live Fast, Die Young, Leave a Good-Looking Corpse." Published October 14, 2008 in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Author: David M. Burns, MD. ACS News Center stories are provided as a source of cancer-related news and are not intended to be used as press releases.

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Behavior, Lifestyle Factors Influence Cancer Risk Among The Elderly 

Behavioral risk factors have a significant effect on cancer risk in the U.S. elderly population, according to research presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research. Understanding these factors may allow clinicians to make specific recommendations for their elderly patients in order to reduce their risks of future cancers.

"About 80 percent of all cancers are diagnosed in the elderly, and more than 80 percent of known risk factors are potentially preventable," said Igor Akushevich, Ph.D., senior research scientist, Center for Population Health and Aging, Duke University, Durham, N.C. . . .

As expected, tobacco consumption was significantly associated with lung cancer. Future research will examine any joint effects of cigarette smoking and other risk factors such as physical activity or obesity, Akushevich said.

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Wales | Cancer death rates 'inequality' 

The gap in cancer death rates is widening between rich and poor areas of Wales, according to the chief medical officer.

In his annual report, Dr Tony Jewell, who advises the assembly government, said there must be a greater focus on putting an end to health inequalities.

Part of the problem is the higher number of people who smoke, drink and take drugs in deprived areas, he said.

Overall, however, he said people are getting healthier and living longer. . . .

People in the most deprived populations in Wales are twice as likely to smoke as those in the least deprived areas.

Dr Jewell will launch his report at Brynteg Comprehensive School, Bridgend, when he visits an assembly government programme that aims to persuade schoolchildren against smoking.

"Efforts are needed to reduce the levels of smoking, especially stopping young people from starting in the first place, as it is a major cause of health inequalities," he said.

"The ban on smoking in public places will also assist a decline in smoking rates and consumption."

The report shows that deaths from heart disease and strokes are continuing to fall.

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Pensioner burns to death after incontinents pants catch fire from cigarette  

A DISABLED pensioner burned to death when his incontinence pants caught fire.

A coroner's court was told yesterday that tragic George Martin, 71, died at home after a cigarette caused pads within the pants to go up in flames.

Then his wheelchair became trapped between internal doors as he tried to get into the kitchen to douse himself with water.

George, known locally as Bill, died at his bungalow in Southminster, near Maldon, Essex, on February 28 this year.

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• Vic men quitting smoking, living longer 

Many Victorian males now outlive their Japanese counterparts because of a rise in the life expectancy, attributed to quitting smoking.

A Victorian male born in 2006 can expect to live for 80 years, overtaking the world's longest-living men, the Japanese, according to figures released by the Victorian government on Sunday.

Health Minister Daniel Andrews said in 2006 Japanese men had an average life expectancy of 79 years.

"One of the reasons advanced for the relative improvement in male life expectancy is because more men are giving up smoking, with deaths from lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease falling quicker in men than in women," Mr Andrews said.

However, women are still outliving their male counterparts.

In 1999, life expectancy for men was 76.7 years and 82.0 years for women.

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• Fatal Fires Associated with Smoking During Long-Term Oxygen Therapy --- Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma, 2000--2007 

Approximately 1 million persons in the United States receive long-term oxygen therapy (LTOT) annually through the Medicare program, most often for smoking-related lung disease (1,2). At 2:10 a.m. on December 14, 2007, a fire occurred in a public housing project for the elderly in Westbrook, Maine. Approximately 60 residents were evacuated; six were transported to a hospital for smoke inhalation. The fire was caused unintentionally by a woman aged 57 years who was an overnight guest of a relative who lived in the housing project. The visitor had ignited the fire while simultaneously smoking and using an oxygen concentrator.* After this incident, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, in collaboration with three other states, attempted to determine 1) how often this type of event results in fatalities and 2) factors common to these incidents that might be amenable to prevention. This report describes the results of that study, which found that, during 2000--2007, of the 38 deaths identified in the four states, 37 occurred in private residences, and the median age of the decedents was 67 years. Prevention of this type of fatality is dependent on smoking cessation, careful assessment of the need for LTOT, and strategies to prevent injuries from fires, such as smoke alarms and sprinklers.

Three other states (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma) agreed to join Maine in the study.

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