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Tag: tobacco

Two FREE Online Courses: Tobacco and Nicotine Products and Addiction

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Below are two FREE online continuing education (CE) courses from The Proctor & Gamble Company written by American Dental Association (ADA) member Dr. Nevin Zablotsky. Given COVID-19’s impact on the respiratory system, this information is timely.

Tobacco and Nicotine Products: The Times They Are A’Changing (1 CE hr)
The use of tobacco and its byproducts stems back to more than 5,000 B.C. Over time, we’ve found that these products are highly addictive and cause numerous serious health problems to those who use them. Given the devastation that tobacco use has caused, the tobacco industry has been forced since the 1960s and 70s to try to find ways to get the consumers of their products to switch to those that are less harmful. There have been many iterations of tobacco harm reduction over the years, with the latest being e-cigarettes and now heat-not-burn products. This course will help provide the needed knowledge to help understand how we got to the present dilemma we face as a society with these products and where we may be going to undo the damage done.


Tobacco 101: A Guide to Working with Nicotine Addicted Patients (3 CE hrs)
The course is a more thorough review of tobacco and nicotine products and how they impact oral health. There is a review of addiction with an emphasis on nicotine addiction, and a discussion of smoking cessation modalities that are currently available. This course will provide an understanding of how tobacco products impact your patients and educate you on how to confidently guide your tobacco- and nicotine-using patients to quit their addiction and the proper resources available to them.

 

About Dr. Nevin Zablotsky
Dr. Zablotsky was a periodontist for more than 40 years and treated many patients who were addicted to various tobacco and nicotine products. He saw firsthand the impact of using these addictive products on their oral and overall health. Sadly, some suffered from chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular compromises and strokes, COPD, lung and oral cancer. In 2001, he was part of a program funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to educate dental offices in Vermont on the impact of these products on their patients. This led to his second career as a lecturer on this subject throughout the U.S and internationally, as well as for the ADA. Over the past six years, he’s been consulting and lecturing at Nova Southeastern University College of Dental Medicine.

 

 

 

 

The Facts: Electronic Cigarettes

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By Tobacco Free Florida

Why Doctor Intervention is Important

  • Electronic cigarettes – also known as e-cigarettes, e-cigs, vape pens and vapes – have not been around long enough to determine their long-term health effects.
  • Studies have found harmful chemicals in some e-cigarettes. These substances include traces of metal, volatile organic compounds and nitrosamines, which are carcinogenic.1

 Not a Proven Cessation Tool

  • E-cigarettes are not approved quit aids by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA). There are seven USFDA-approved cessation aids and medications that are proven safe and effective when used as directed.2
  • Tobacco Free Florida offers free cessation services that can increase your patients’ chances of quitting by five times.3
  • These services provide free USFDA-approved nicotine replacement therapy, if medically appropriate and while supplies last.
  • Floridians who want to quit smoking are encouraged to find the cessation service that works best for them at tobaccofreeflorida.com.

Dual Use with Conventional Cigarettes

  • Approximately three out of four e-cigarette users continue to smoke conventional cigarettes as well, which is called “dual use.”4
  • Dual use is not an effective way to safeguard one’s health.5 Even people who smoke fewer than five cigarettes a day may show signs of early heart disease.6

 E-cigarettes and Youth

  • Monthly poison control calls about exposure to liquid nicotine have increased dramatically. In just a few years, calls per month increased from one to 215. 7
  • In Florida, the number of high school students who were current e-cigarette users tripled from 5.4 percent in 2013 to 15.8 percent in 2015.8
  • There is evidence that adolescents who use e-cigarettes are more likely to start smoking cigarettes. 9,10
  • Adolescent bodies are more sensitive to nicotine, and adolescents are more easily addicted than adults.11 Because the adolescent brain is still developing, nicotine use during adolescence can disrupt the formation of brain circuits that control susceptibility to addiction.12

For more information on how to help your patients quit tobacco, visit tobaccofreeflorida.com/healthcare-provider.

 

1 Cheng T. Chemical Evaluation of Electronic Cigarettes. Nicotine & Tobacco Research 2014;23,ii11–7. 23 May 2014.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24732157.
2 “Five Keys for Quitting Smoking.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d. Web.
3 Professional Data Analysts. “BTFF Tobacco Cessation Evaluation FY15 Synthesis Report.” 15 February  2015.
4 King, Patel, Nguyen, and Dube. Trends in Awareness and Use of Electronic Cigarettes among U.S. Adults, 2010 -2013 Nicotine Tob Res ntu191 first published online September 19, 2014 doi:10.1093/ntr/ntu191.
5 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Transcript for CDC press briefing: CDC launches powerful new ads in “Tips From Former Smokers” campaign.” 26 March 2015. Web. Last Assessed 24 July 2015. http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2015/t0326-tips.html.
6 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking — 50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2014.
7 Chatham-Stephens, Kevin, et al. “Notes from the Field: Calls to Poison Centers for Exposures to Electronic Cigarettes — United States, September 2010–February 2014.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 04 Apr. 2014. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6313a4.htm?s_cid=mm6313a4_w.
8 Florida Youth Tobacco Survey (FYTS), Florida Department of Health, Bureau of Epidemiology, 2015.
9 Thomas A Wills, Rebecca Knight, James D Sargent, Frederick X Gibbons, Ian Pagano, Rebecca J Williams Longitudinal study of e-cigarette use and onset of cigarette smoking among high school students in Hawaii. Tob Control doi:10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2015-052705.
10 Coleman BN, Apelberg BJ, Ambrose BK, et al. Association between electronic cigarette use and openness to cigarette smoking among US young adults. Nicotine Tob Res. 2015; 17(2):212-218.
11 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2010.
12 England, L. et al. Nicotine and the Developing Human: A Neglected Element of the E -cigarette Debate. Am J Prev Med. 2015 Mar 7. [Epub ahead of print].