Health Wanted: Smoking
HEALTH WANTED, a weekly radio show and podcast produced in partnership with WABE, brings need-to-know public health headlines and breaks down the science behind trending topics.
The Episode
The topic: From anti-smoking campaigns to advertisements for fruit-flavored vapes, marketing has played a huge role in how Americans interact with smoking products for over a century. This week on Health Wanted, host Laurel Bristow and guest Johannes Thrul, PhD, associate professor of public health, explore the evolution of smoking and the latest research into helping people quit.
The takeaway: The history of smoking is intertwined with intense marketing and misinformation, leading to widespread addiction and harm. Vaping has emerged as a new health concern with unclear long-term effects, raising questions about whether it is a safer alternative to traditional smoking or a rebranded form of addiction.
- In the early 20th century, tobacco companies promoted cigarettes as symbols of health and freedom. Despite growing evidence linking smoking to cancer, the industry used misleading tactics to maintain its influence and confuse the public about the risks for decades.
- As smoking rates dropped, e-cigarettes and vaping products entered the scene, marketed as “less harmful” alternatives. While they eliminate tobacco, these products still contain highly addictive nicotine and may expose users to other harmful chemicals.
- Vaping’s appeal to young people has raised concerns that it works as a bridge to smoking cigarettes. Instead of providing a safer alternative, vaping could replace one form of addiction with another, especially given its high nicotine levels.
- Public health campaigns and smoking bans have driven down smoking rates in recent decades, but the rise of vaping poses new challenges. Researchers still lack long-term data on the effects of vaping, and thousands of unregulated vaping products remain on the market.
The Interview
The guest: Johannes Thrul, PhD
The key takeaways:
- Advances in mobile technology now allow for personalized interventions that track individual smoking behavior in real time. By gathering data such as smoking triggers, locations, and habits, these systems can offer unique support, delivering targeted messages when they are most needed.
- Public health policies such as increased taxes on tobacco, restrictions on tobacco product availability, and smoke-free air laws have been proven to reduce smoking rates. Shifting social norms can also play a crucial role in reducing smoking rates and encouraging healthier behavior.
- Quitting smoking is a difficult process, and most people need multiple attempts before they can succeed. Support systems such as counseling, nicotine replacement therapy, and behavioral strategies are essential for helping individuals deal with the challenges involved with stopping smoking.
The Listener Questions
Do hurricanes cause increases in flesh-eating bacteria?
Vibrio vulnificus is a type of “flesh-eating bacteria,” or necrotizing fasciitis, so named because when it infects a wound it kills the fascia (a layer of tissue under the skin), feeding the bacterial infection and allowing it to spread rapidly.
Another way to become infected with Vibrio vulnificus is by eating raw seafood, like oysters, that are contaminated. It can quickly spread from the GI tract to the bloodstream.
The cases of Vibrio vulnificus have increased in Florida to the highest level they’ve been in the last ten years. The only year that has come close was 2022, when Hurricane Ian happened.
There are typically about 100 cases of this kind of bacteria per year in the U.S. , though that’s likely an underestimation because some of the foodborne cases go unreported. But this year, in Florida alone there are at least 77 cases and 15 deaths.
This increase in cases is because hurricanes like Helene and Milton create storm surges that bring the brackish warm water the bacteria likes to live in further inland,exposing more people who are trying to get out of the floodwaters.
The cases will likely level out, but it’s important to remember that the health effects of these hurricanes last a lot longer than the storms themselves.
Are children who get COVID-19 more likely to develop type two diabetes?
In October, a study came out that showed an increased risk of a type two diabetes diagnosis in kids in the 6 months following a COVID-19 infection compared to the same time frame following infection with another respiratory illness.
Type two diabetes is a condition where your pancreas produces too little insulin, and your body develops resistance to it; with type one diabetes, your body attacks and destroys the cells that create insulin.
The absolute risk of kids getting type two diabetes is still very low, and it’s still always going to be better for your kid to not get COVID. With that in mind, the study found that kids had a 1.5 times higher risk of a type two diabetes diagnosis after infection with COVID-19. Kids who were obese had twice the risk of a COVID diagnosis, and kids sick enough to need to be hospitalized had three times the risk.
More research is needed, but it’s a good idea to try to avoid COVID whenever possible.
Catch all the listener questions and Laurel’s answers on the full episode of Health Wanted by:
- Streaming at wabe.org or the WABE app
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