Burgeoning evidence of the formidable mortality consequences of cigarette smoking has motivated life insurers to offer lower premiums to non-smokers. With widely-advertised nonsmoker discounts also available on propertycasualty and health insurance products, the alert consumer is now aware of the economic advantage of being a non-user of cigarettes, even if only temporarily (i.e., when the agen...

Materials and Methods: CT scans and spirometry were obtained on 1519 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) subjects, 269 smoker controls, and 184 nonsmoker controls from the Evaluation of COPD Longitudinally to Indentify Surrogate Endpoints (ECLIPSE) study. CT scanswere analyzed using the threshold technique (%< 950HU) and a low attenuation cluster analysis. Two radiologists scored emphy...

A 24-year-old woman presented with a 3-week history of exertional dyspnea and dry cough. Her medical history was remarkable for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). She had no exacerbation of joint symptoms during the prior 2 years. She denied fever or other constitutional symptoms. She took ibuprofen occasionally but no other antirheumatic medications. She was a lifelong nonsmoker. Her review of systems...

A nested case-control study was designed to evaluate whether a nearly twofold excess of kidney cancer among workers at a refinery/petrochemical plant was associated with cumulative exposure to C2-C5 saturated, C2-C5 unsaturated, C6-C10 aliphatic saturated, C6-C10 aliphatic unsaturated, and C6-C10 aromatic process streams. Nonoccupational risk factors were body mass index (BMI), blood pressure (...

BACKGROUND To date, few studies have assessed the association between the number of children and obesity in couples. We aimed to investigate this association in men and women aged 20-75 years. METHODS Data from the National Health Survey were considered in this investigation. It included 2728 women and men (1364 couples) aged 20-75 years. Height and weight were actually measured rather than s...

OBJECTIVE To compare the results obtained from pregnant mothers` self-reports of smoke exposure with those obtained from laboratory tests of fetal cord blood. METHODS This cross-sectional study was conducted in Al-Elwyea Maternity Teaching Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq. Eighty-eight mothers and their newly born babies were included in the study through convenient sample techniques from August to No...