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Research shows that men's smoking habits play a major role in pregnant women's ability to quit smoking for good.

 

The study, by Sue Ziebland and Alice Fuller of Imperial Cancer Research Fund's General Practice Research Group in Oxford, helps to explain why so many women who give up smoking during pregnancy start again after the baby is born.Pregnant women are aware of the dangers of smoking and many are highly motivated to try to stop.However, if their partner continues to smoke they risk undermining the woman's efforts.

 

The researchers found that even those men who think they are doing the right thing by smoking their cigarettes out of sight at the bottom of the garden, come in for sharp criticism.Sue Ziebland, commented: "Men can really help their partners to give up smoking during pregnancy and remain smoke-free and the best support they can give is to quit themselves."

 

The women we interviewed felt unsupported by men's 'do as I say, not as I do attitude' when their partners continued to smoke, but encouraged them to stop."Sir Paul Nurse, director general of Imperial Cancer Research Fund added: "Research carried out by our scientists has shown that by quitting before your 35th birthday, you avoid nearly all the risk of being killed by tobacco."Some 70 per cent of adult smokers say that they would like to quit and most couples have their first pregnancies at an age where there is ample opportunity to recover from most of the damage caused by youthful cigarette smoking."

 

 

German doctors have come up with a new operation which stops snoring.

 

Doctors insert a probe which sends out a radio frequency into the back of the throat and top of the mouth, thereby destroying the excess tissue that flaps during sleepy deep breathing, making the snoring noises.A spokesperson for the developers of the procedure, Select Medizin-Technik Sutter, says the operation is so simple doctors in any ear nose and throat surgery should be able to carry it out.

 

A new drug is being developed to help people overcome shyness.The invention is being tested in trials in Glasgow and could be on the market next year.The drug stimulates the brain to produce seratonin, which is the chemical that controls our moods.The trials are being carried out at the private HCI medical centre at Clydebank and will have involved 250 people by the end of May 2002.*A new pill which scientists believe can reduce the effects of a certain strain of leukaemia is being launched in the UK.

 

Doctors are hopeful that Glivec could offer an alternative to powerful chemotherapy and a potentially dangerous bone marrow transplant operation as a treatment for myeloid leukaemia (CML).The pill works by precision targeting of the molecules thought to responsible for causing the cancer.Clinical trials involving over 7,500 patients worldwide have proved to be highly encouraging.