Champix

What is Champix?

Champix (Varenicline), its type of medication designed to aid people in giving up the habit of smoking. This treatment, know as a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor partial agonist, works by stimulating the same receptors of the brain that smoking nicotine does which helps reduce cravings. With a success rate of around 44%, this treatment is far more effective than its only competitor, Zyban. Since its release in January 2007, Champix has fast become one of the more popular options for patients looking to end their addiction to nicotine.

How Does It Work?

Champix works by stimulating the same receptors in the brain as nicotine. This makes it possible for Champix to remove all the cravings and withdrawal symptoms which would normally be experienced if you were to stop smoking. As well as this action, Champix also works to block the receptors from any nicotine inhaled, which means that the rewarding affects that nicotine would usually have on the body are no longer effective.

What's the difference between Champix and Zyban?

Zyban as it is also known, was originally developed and approved as an antidepressant and was only later discovered to have some degree of benefit with smoking cessation. The way in which this treatment works is not presently understood by the medical community, but it is known that Zyban affects the neurotransmitters (chemicals stored in nerve cells) noradrenaline and dopamine by increasing the amount of these in the brain which is believed to help reduce cravings.
The success rate of Zyban is approximately 29%, which in comparison to that of Champix which has a success rate 44%, is considerably less, rendering this treatment far less effective in helping people stop smoking. Further, the results of several comparative studies have found Champix to be far more effective even in fewer doses.

How is this champix treatment taken?

Champix comes in tablet form and is taken for a period of 12 weeks. Your course of champix treatment will comprise of a starter pack which contains 11 x 0.5mg white tablets and 14 x 1mg light blue tablets. These different doses are used as described below:

• From day 1 to 3 – take one 0.5mg dose of Champix daily
• From day 4 to 7, take one 0.5mg dose of Champix twice daily, once in the morning and once in the evening, at approximately the same time each day
• From day 8 to 14, take one 1mg dose of Champix twice daily, once in the morning and once in the evening, at approximately the same time each day
• From day 15 onwards until you have completed your course of treatment, you should take one 1mg dose of Champix twice daily, once in the morning and once in the evening, at approximately the same time each day.
If you experience unpleasant side effects once you have started taking the 1mg dosage of Champix, it is possible to revert back to the 0.5mg dosage, which will be taken twice daily for the remainder of the treatment. You will need to inform our customer service department who will take information from you regarding these champix side effects and seek the advice of our doctor.

What are the side effects of Champix?

As with all prescription medications, there are several possible side effects attributed to Champix. The more common side effects, which you will more than likely not experience at all, include nausea, insomnia, abnormal dreams and headache. These champix side effects are usually mild with fewer than 3% of patients ceasing treatment as a result.

UK doctors urge ban on smoking in cars

A British doctors group reaserch that smoking should be ban in cars, saying the secondhand smoke inside a vehicle can cause severe health problems for children and adults.The Royal College of Physicians made the recommendation in a new report on how secondhand smoke, also called passive smoking, affects children.
The report found that, for children, secondhand smoke annually causes more than 20,000 cases of lower respiratory tract infection, 120,000 cases of middle ear disease, at least 22,000 cases of wheezing and asthma, 200 cases of bacterial meningitis, and 40 sudden infant deaths.
England's chief medical officer, Liam Donaldson, said the report will contribute to the the government's review of existing smoking legislation in England later this year. Smoking was made illegal in all public spaces in the United Kingdom in 2007.

"This is a serious public health concern," Donaldson said.

Health effects on children from secondhand smoke are "entirely avoidable," the report says. It laid out a series of policy recommendations to reduce those effects, including the ban on smoking in cars.
"Smoke-free legislation should be extended much more widely to include public places frequented by children and young people, and to prohibit all smoking in cars and other vehicles," the report urged.
The report also urged a hike in tobacco prices, more effective health warnings, more generic packaging for tobacco products, and tailored stop-smoking services.
"This report isn't just about protecting children from passive smoking, it's about taking smoking completely out of children's lives," said John Britton, chairman of the Royal College of Physicians' Tobacco Advisory Group.
Smokers' lobby group Forest said the proposals "go way beyond what is acceptable in a free society" and are a first step to banning smoking in homes.
"They wouldn't encourage people to smoke around children, but adults should be allowed to use their common sense and act accordingly," said Simon Clark, director of Forest. "They don't need laws to regulate every aspect of our behavior."
Clark said the report's claims are a "huge exaggeration."
"Unfortunately the anti-smoking industry isn't interested in compromise. It just wants to bully smokers until they quit," Clark said.

UK control Lungs Cancer

Britain has the largest decrease in the world in premature deaths from lung cancer, and widespread smoking cessation is the chief reason, according to a major new study to be reported in this week's British Medical Journal by Sir Richard Doll, whose work 50 years ago first linked smoking to lung cancer in the UK. Speaking at a BMJ press conference today (2 August), Professor Doll, age 87, from Imperial Cancer Research Fund's Oxford unit, said: "Our 1950 study showed that smoking was a cause of most of the lung cancer in Britain at that time, and our new study shows that widespread cessation of smoking has halved the number of lung cancer deaths that would otherwise be occurring in Britain in the year 2000."
The 1950 study was the first to link lung cancer in Britain to smoking. It compared the smoking habits of 1,465 people with lung cancer and 1,465 without the disease. The new study compares the smoking habits of 982 people with lung cancer and 3185 without it. Because so many smokers have stopped, the new study can assess the effects of prolonged cessation. It finds that, among men who continue to smoke, 16% will die from lung cancer before age 75 (unless they die of something else first). But, for those who stop at age 50 this risk is only 6%, and for those who stop at age 30 it is less than 2%. See fig. 3
Nationwide effects on lung cancer deaths of big changes in smoking often show up first among men in early middle age. The UK had about the worst lung_cancer_death rates in the world in 1950, but has had the best decrease since then. The US is lagging 25 years behind, but since the 1970s US male lung cancer mortality in early middle age has halved. See fig. 2a, 2b, and other graphs and data of lung cancer deaths since 1950 (male & female, early middle age & later) for the UK, US and many other developed countries.
In addition, smoking kills many more people by other diseases than by lung cancer: overall, half of all cigarette smokers will eventually be killed by tobacco if they don't stop. But, even the smokers who stop in middle age avoid most of their later risk of being killed by tobacco, and those who stop before middle age avoid nearly all the risk. Said Professor Doll: "In 1950, 80% of the men and 40% of the women in Britain smoked, and tobacco deaths were increasing rapidly. Nowadays, among people over the age of 50 there are twice as many ex-cigarette smokers as cigarette smokers, and tobacco deaths are decreasing rapidly. But, smoking is still the biggest cause of premature death in Britain." There have been six million deaths from tobacco in Britain over the past 50 years, of which three million were deaths in middle age (35-69). Those killed by tobacco in middle age lost, on average, more than 20 years of life.
Professor Sir Richard Peto of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund's Oxford unit and co-author of the new report said "There are still 10 million smokers in Britain, and about five million will be killed by tobacco if they don't stop. In the United States there are 50 million smokers: about 25 million will be killed by tobacco if they don't stop. Tobacco deaths over the next 50 years will be affected much more by the number of adults who manage to stop than by the number of adolescents who start smoking."
Professor Peto cautioned that while premature deaths from tobacco are decreasing in Britain, and are beginning to decrease in some other developed countries, they are increasing rapidly in many other countries. Worldwide, there were about 100 million (0.1 billion) tobacco deaths in the 20th century, but if current smoking patterns continue there will be about 1,000 million (1 billion) in the 21st century. The increase is partly because of population growth, and partly because the increases over the past few decades in cigarette smoking by young adults imply increases over the next few decades in deaths from tobacco (if those young adults continue to smoke as they reach middle and old age). There are currently 1.1 billion smokers in the world.
Sir Richard Peto said: "On present smoking patterns there will be about 150 million tobacco deaths in the first 25 years of this century and 300 million in the second quarter. Most of those who will be killed by tobacco in the first half of this century have already begun to smoke. So, these numbers of tobacco deaths could be substantially reduced only by current smokers giving up the habit. In contrast, the extent to which young people henceforth become persistent smokers will affect mortality rates chiefly in the middle or second half of the 21st century."

UK Tobacco control objectives

Current government targets for reducing smoking prevalence in the UK are to achieve a reduction in smoking rates from 26 per cent in 2002 to 21 per cent of the general population by 2010 (Choosing Health - A White Paper on Public Health, 2005).
The NHS National Plan expands upon this with a target of 1.5 million smokers quitting by 2010. This equates to around 125,000 smokers stopping each year. The NHS Cancer Plan prioritises social inequalities in smoking and targets a reduction in smoking in routine manual groups from 31 per cent in 2002 to 26 per cent in 2010.
The NHS National Plan has set out and implemented a number of initiatives aimed at meeting these targets. These have included the NHS stop smoking services, making cessation products available on prescription, the NHS stop smoking helpline (0800 169 0169) and ongoing television adverts and public information campaigns.

No Smoking Day is also a major contributor to achieving smoking prevalence targets. With such high awareness levels, the Day is a focus for many smokers attempting to stop. The No Smoking Day charity works closely with groups involved in smoking cessation to ensure the information and advice given to smokers is the most up-to-date available. Each year more than a million people will attempt to quit on No Smoking Day.
Calls to helplines, sales of stop smoking products and visits to stop smoking services peak on every No Smoking Day, demonstrating the continued impact and effectiveness of the campaign.
On No Smoking Day 2006, call volumes to the NHS stop smoking helpline reached four times the daily average for the rest of the year, with around 12,000 calls made on the Day. Data from the NHS stop smoking services shows that the busiest time of the year is the January to March quarter.