BACKGROUND Smoking is Greece's largest public health threat. Greece has the highest adult smoking prevalence among all E.U countries, which in turn possibly predisposes Greek children and adolescents to smoke. The purpose of our study was to research into the smoking habits of preschool children's parents since children of that age could be vulnerable to parental negative role modeling and to i...

Panoramic radiographs (PR) can display radiopaque images suggestive of calcified atheroma in the carotid artery in asymptomatic patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of these images on PR and their linkage with hypertension, obesity, age, gender and smoking habits. PR of 505 patients were evaluated. They were older than 30 years old and their PR had been taken for diffe...

Objectives The present study was undertaken to assess the prevalence of smoking and chewing habits and causes of addiction among the school children of rural areas. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted in four secondary schools from rural areas of Bankura District, West Bengal during August 2012 to September 2012. Total 1674 students studying in 5 to 10 standard (age group of 10-15 ...

BACKGROUND The Eosinophil Cationic Protein (ECP) is a potent multifunctional protein. Three common polymorphisms are present in the ECP gene, which determine the function and production of the protein. The aim was to study the relationship of these ECP gene polymorphisms to signs and symptoms of allergy and asthma in a community based cohort (The European Community Respiratory Health Survey (EC...

CONTEXT Although more than half of the world's population is colonized with Helicobacter pylori, it remains unknown why this organism is able to produce severe disease in some hosts and be innocuous in others. The clinical outcome of infection is determined by several factors, including differences in the host response to bacterial stimulation, specific virulence factors of the organism and env...

A sample of 2885 children aged 12 and 13 who completed a questionnaire survey in school in January 1987 were given a second questionnaire on a specified date in May 1987. The smoking habits, parental smoking habits, sex, and social background of the children who were present on both dates were compared with those of the children who were absent on the second occasion. Regular smoking was signif...

BACKGROUND Many women stop smoking before or during pregnancy, or while breast-feeding (nursing). OBJECTIVES To assess the relation between breast-feeding and smoking habits. METHODS A survey was conducted among 920 women attending family health clinics (group 1) and a maternity department (group 2) on their breast-feeding and smoking habits. RESULTS A total of 156 women (16.95%) smoked d...

[Purpose] We sought to examine the relationship between lifestyle behavior and physical fitness in middle-aged and elderly laborers. [Subjects] In total, 2,469 male laborers between 45 and 64 years of age residing in eight cities in South Korea were studied between January and December 2007. [Methods] Age, height, and weight were evaluated as general characteristics. Lifestyle behavior items in...

OBJECTIVES To investigate in older industrialised societies (a) how social disadvantage contributes to smoking risk among women (b) the role of social and economic policies in reducing disadvantage and moderating wider inequalities in life chances and living standards. METHODS Review and analysis of (a) the effects of disadvantage in childhood and into adulthood on women's smoking status in e...