New study points out that the difference between a non-smoker and daily smoker is one cigarette.

A new British study reveals that only one cigarette can turn a non-smoker into a daily smoker. According to the aforementioned study, approximately 69 percent of all adults take up smoking on a daily basis after their first cigarette, but not will turn this into a lifetime habit.

Can One Cigarette Really Turn You into a Daily Smoker?

Although the study conducted by the Queen Mary University of London might sound a tad dramatic, the numbers seem to back it back. Amassing data from four different smoke-related studies and approximately 200,000 interviews, the team of scientists led by Professor Peter Hajek, discovered that a total number of 69 percent of all respondents turned smoking in a daily habit right after sampling their first cigarette.

After crunching the numbers even further, Hajek’s team also uncovered that 60.3 percent of all interviewed individuals already tried their first cigarette and 68.3 percent of have begun smoking on a daily basis.

Despite the alarming numbers, Hajek pointed out that smoking among teens, aged 11 to 15, has exponentially decreased over the past decade. The study points out that only 19 percent of all youngster smoked their first.

So, smoking only one cigarette will turn me into a daily smoker? According to the study, there’s a 69 chance of that happening. However, as Hajek pointed out, the situation might just be temporary, meaning that there’s a chance you might ‘outgrow’ daily smoking.

More Health Concerns?

Professor Hajek’s study also touched a few other points of smoking, such as vaping. Compared to smoking normal cigarettes, it would appear that vapers have little to no odds of becoming daily consumers after their first whiff.

Furthermore, in accordance with the study, there is no proof to indicate that vaping is more addictive than smoking tobacco products.

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The flu usually leads to death only one or two weeks after infection

A 20-year-old mother of two from Arizona tragically passed away on November 28^th, only one day after receiving a flu diagnose. This struck her family members as the most unexpected thing that could have happened, as the woman was healthy, and they weren’t aware of her suffering from any life-threatening condition.

The woman kept coughing after getting the medication

One day, Alanie ‘Joie’ Murrieta came back early from her work. She said she wasn’t feeling very well, and her condition quickly worsened. Therefore, the next day, she went to an emergency clinic to receive treatment. When she got there, the doctors quickly diagnosed her with the flu, and prescribed her the medicine Tamiflu.

This medicine is good against influenza viruses of type A and B. Usually, it returns great results if taken within 48 hours after the person first gets infected. Murrieta took the medication as the doctors recommended, but things were still not getting better.

After she returned from the clinic, the woman kept coughing quite severely. As she was extremely tired, she went to sleep, but she continued coughing as the night lasted. The next day, she experienced some trouble breathing, so she went back to the hospital.

The flu later developed into pneumonia

There, the doctors saw how Murrieta’s oxygen levels severely dropped. After performing an X-ray, they observed how the flu quickly turned into pneumonia. They immediately administered her proper medication, but she still wasn’t getting better. After transferring her to the ICU, her heart stopped beating and she died.

This came as a shock to her family members, who said she was perfectly healthy and had no other condition which might make her condition worse. Usually, the flu might cause the death of a person only one or two weeks after the infection. This happens mostly because the disease might trigger another infection, or it might lead to complications of an already existing health condition.
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Four cups is the optimal quantity of coffee you can drink every day

Plenty of research brings evidence of the great health benefits of coffee, and a new study has just been added on the list. It seems that even heavy caffeine drinkers are safe from diseases, as scientists have discovered that drinking up to three and four cups of coffee per day has a protective effect.

Four cups of coffee a day is the ideal quantity

To put up this research, scientists analyzed over 200 older studies on caffeine consumption, and discovered it had a lot more benefits than harmful effects. Some might think that drinking coffee moderately is the secret, but the results revealed that even a higher quantity is good.

It turns out the perfect quantity of coffee a person can drink per day is between three and four cups. The results showed this is associated with a risk of death lower by 17 percent than the risk of people who don’t drink coffee at all. However, drinking even more is still beneficial. Consuming up to seven cups a day can still reduce your risk by 10 percent.

Four cups of coffee a day can decrease the risk of a series of cancers, including prostate, endometrial, skin, or liver. Also, the beverage can work wonders against diseases and conditions like depression, diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and many others. Coffee consumption becomes harmful if it’s associated with other factors, such as smoking.

Some groups of people should avoid drinking coffee

Even if drinking up to four cups of coffee per day has health benefits, researchers do not advise people to start consuming the beverage just to cut certain health risks. In fact, certain categories should refrain from drinking it. The same benefits don’t apply to pregnant women who, by drinking coffee, risk giving birth prematurely or even pregnancy loss.

Four cups of coffee are great against diseases, but people should be careful not to overdo it. Also, when choosing the beverage, they should keep it as healthy as possible, and avoid adding extra cream or sugar. All the other details on the study have been published in the journal BMJ.
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New research has linked sugar to rapid tumor growth in cancer patients. It is not the first time a study associates a particular food to cancer, processed meats and trans fats have long been believed to fuel cancer.

Scientists at three institutions in Belgium have recently completed a nine-year experiment that revealed that the type of sugar called glucose can boost tumor growth rate. The findings appeared this week in the journal Nature Communications.

The research team explained that non-cancerous cells get their energy from digested food through a process called aerobic respiration. In the process oxygen is consumed and carbon dioxide is released. Cancerous cells, on the other hand, skip respiration and get their energy from fermented sugar through a long-documented process called the Warburg effect.

During the experiment, researchers tested the Warburg effect theory on yeast cells in laboratory conditions. Yeast cells and cancerous cells are very similar as they would rather get their energy from sugar than respiration. The scope of the experiment was to test the Warburg effect’s strength when it comes to cancer.

Sugar Fuels Cancer

Repeated tests have shown that sugar indeed fuels tumor growth as it can spur the reproduction rate of cells exponentially. The experiment revealed that sugar can boost the reproduction rate of certain genes called Ras proteins which have been long suspected of causing aggressive forms of cancer.

Senior author Johan Thevelein explained that sugar intake can lead to a vicious cycle as cancer cells grow faster and sturdier which prompts more sugar intake. Thevelein thinks his team has just proved that the Warburg effect is tied to tumor aggressiveness.

This link between sugar and cancer has sweeping consequences,

the co-author of the research said.

He is confident the study results could help further research into the matter and more effective cancer treatments. However, the team couldn’t tell why exactly cancerous cells respond so aggressively to sugar.
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