Posted on 05/23/2006 11:53:56 AM PDT by Moonman62
SAN FRANCISCO -- A new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study shows that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, even at extremely low levels, is associated with behavior problems in children and pre-teens.
While the study examined 5 to 11 year olds with asthma, the findings most likely could be extrapolated to include children without asthma who "act out" or experience depression and anxiety, according to Kimberly Yolton, Ph.D., a researcher at the Children's Environmental Health Center at Cincinnati Children's and the study's main author
The study will be presented at 8:30 a.m. Pacific time Sunday, April 30, at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in San Francisco.
"This study provides further incentive for states to set public health standards to protect children from exposure to environmental tobacco smoke," says Dr. Yolton.
Dr. Yolton examined 225 children and pre-teens exposed to at least five cigarettes a day. On average, the children were exposed to approximately 14 cigarettes a day. The children were enrolled in an asthma intervention study. Dr. Yolton included additional measures to assess child behaviors.
To measure exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, Dr. Yolton measured levels of cotinine in the children's blood. Cotinine is a substance produced when nicotine is broken down by the body and can be measured in blood, urine, saliva and hair. It is considered the best available marker of environmental tobacco smoke exposure.
Dr. Yolton found a relationship between cotinine levels and increases in acting out; increases in holding things in, often manifested by anxiety and depression; increases in behavior problems as rated by parents, and behavior and school problems as rated by teachers; and, decreases in the ability to adapt to behavior problems.
"The greater the exposure to tobacco smoke, the greater the problems these children had," says Dr. Yolton. "Behavior problems in children have increased from 7 to 18 percent over the last 20 years for reasons that are poorly understood. Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke is increasingly recognized as a risk factor for child behavior problems."
In the United States, about 25 percent of children are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke in their own homes, yet more than 50 percent of children have detectable levels of cotinine in their blood, according to Dr. Yolton.
Previous studies have found link between tobacco smoke and birth weight, number of infections and other health problems, including asthma exacerbations. In a groundbreaking study in 2002, Dr. Yolton found that exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, even at extremely low levels, is associated with decreases in certain cognitive skills, including reading, math, and logic and reasoning, in children and adolescents.
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Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is a 475-bed institution devoted to bringing the world the joy of healthier kids. Cincinnati Children's is dedicated to transforming the way health care is delivered by providing care that is timely, efficient, effective, family-centered, equitable and safe. Cincinnati Children's ranks third nationally among all pediatric centers in research grants from the National Institutes of Health. It is a teaching affiliate of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. The Cincinnati Children's vision is to be the leader in improving child health. Additional information can be found at www.cincinnatichildrens.org.
You smokers are alright with me; your tobacco tax dollars pay for filling in my road potholes and all that, LOL! My state totally BLEW the wad that they got in the Tobacco Settlement case. They bought ONE TV commercial to help kids to not start smoking, then blew the rest on pork-projects. Money soooo well spent, IMHO. *Rolleyes*
You know I like you personally for many other reasons other than the fact that you'll stand up to these dopes...because when they ban chocolate, I'll be pimping you for ideas. ;)
I love kids, but fer Pete's Sake! Let's work to take care of the REAL dangers they're in within our society, versus the wrapped-around-the-axel, bogus, paid-for-by-Anti "studies" out there. ;)
My SIL, the drug addict, thief, drunk driver, mental case and general drain on society, who left her children for DH & I to raise doesn't smoke. *GASP* I guess in your opinion, she'd be a Saint because she "never smoked" around the boys, LOL! They're messed up to this day because they didn't have their bio-Mom and will more than likely have a hard time dealing with women as young adults as their mother (justly) rots in prison.
If all you do to "help defenseless children" is pick on and look down your nose at smokers, based on a bogus study, then you're full of it.
Children have much more desperate and pressing problems in this world than whether their Mom or Dad "lights up" around them.
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Thankfully, I have done a fitting number of such things.
Have you helped 3,000+ Chinese students have a better life and better relationships? I have.
Have you helped several hundred couples stay together instead of split with all the resulting pain to their children? I have.
Have you helped several hundred children overcome the pains of such crazy parents as you've described? I have.
However, Self-righteous pontifications usually do not impress me a great deal.
Smoking around children is still dangerous, destructive to their health and their lives and very selfish.
Sure, many children have many problems much more horrendous than smoking parents.
Evidently some think that horribly terrible poisons to successful living make lesser poisons totally OK.
I don't buy it.
I also don't by shrill defenses of selfishness.
Did I say something about government in my post????
"However, Self-righteous pontifications usually do not impress me a great deal. "
They weren't meant to impress you. You're the LAST person I'd want to impress on this planet, LOL! Guess you don't get that. I just wanted to call you out.
Good for you, for all you've done to help kids. Now get a grip and do the REAL WORK in the trenches and quit dwelling on this unimportant stuff. ;)
The Nanny State has run amok, and there are numerous FReepers assisting the slide down the slippery slope.
I am speaking specifically of the poster that posted this thread.
Left the ministry and gone into science, eh?
Pure propaganda.
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Hello? Are we on the same planet? Are smokers that averse to and/or confused by scientific literature? Does it become too problematic to understand when the number of factors in a complex problem exceed 1?
--Evidently there is an assumption that declining smoking rates have released masses of vulnerable children from ALL the factors contributing to behavior and other health problems!
HINT: THERE ARE MULTIPLE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO
BEHAVIORAL AND HEALTH PROBLEMS IN CHILDREN.
That's not rocket scientist level science. That's elementary.
1. poor fathering or absent father
2. poor mothering or absent mother
3. abusive fathering and/or mothering
4. genetic factors
5. biochemical factors in the womb--of which smoking by the mother or environmental smoke in the mother's environment is a part
6. early attachment/bonding strengths &/or weaknesses
7. spiritual & spiritual family history factors
8. quality of early socialization factors
9. quality of school factors
10. diet factors
11. media/entertainment factors
12. neighborhood, community factors
13. smoke in the child's main environment(s)
These factors are not all equal in their impact. Any given individual has their own mix of whatever combination of such factors. In any given vulnerable individual, some factors may have only 5-15% or whatever of the contributing destructive impact.
and quit dwelling on this unimportant stuff. ;)
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ANYTHING that hurts kids; decreases kids' chances of being at their best
is IMPORTANT, TO ME.
I'd have thought that was true about anyone who loved kids anywhere near as much as I do.
Haven't left anything good, that I had a choice about.
God has virtually always been a significant, super important part of my life. Science has virtually always been a keen interest.
My PhD dissertation looked at 4 out of more than 1,000 variables I collected from a diversity of philosophical/religious value orientations.
Thanks.
How refreshing that others simply
canNOT speak fittingly for me. LOL.
And here I had thought that the religion forum had the most contentious threads with the most hyper arrogant and selfish pontifications.
What an erroneous assumption!
I think I have also tended to suffer from another crazy assumption . . . that between the times of my checking such threads out . . . that certainly virtually all of the smokers will have learned some good science and become less arrogant and selfish in their pontifications. I should know better by now.
Smokers are sooooo easy to pick on,
Not on FR.
Oh, the horror. There are actually people who don't fall in line behind every "for the children" diatribe that comes down the pike, and insist on casting a skeptical eye on the "research" of social engineering wannabes.
"We know for sure that for at least two people on this thread, behavioral problems consist entirely of not living your life to their exacting standards."
You got that right.
I love your soap box..........
Horsehockey??? Isn't that polo?
"Smokers are sooooo easy to pick on,
Not on FR."
HEHE.
Gabz, I think I know why I am the way I am (at least according to this study-hehe). My dad must have quietly smoked a few cigars on the side.
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