More youth trying to quit smoking

It is a rare finding of smoking cessation among adolescent smokers, states a recent report from MMWR. Approximately 15.6% of smokers with ages between 12and 19 years had quit smoking in a four-year period. Also the rates for failed quitting attempts among younger smokers are higher than those for adults (43%), with approximately 58% of high-school smokers having made an attempt to stop the habit for at least once for one day or longer in the preceding year.

A survey was conducted by the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, New York on smokers between 16 and 24 years of age, to observe the behaviour of those trying to quit smoking. Unassisted methods were used by most. The 2582 respondents interviewed telephonically were questioned on the availability of assisted and unassisted quitting methods. Assisted methods included medication or help from a person, a telephone counsellor, a website or by attending a class. The unassisted methods included self help strategies, using educational methods as pamphlets and videos, exercise and adopting a changed smoking-related behaviour as not buying cigarettes or reducing the quantity smoked.

The most commonly used assisted method employed was talking with a nurse, doctor or dentist. The most popular unassisted strategy was not buying cigarettes, exercising more, trying to quit along with a friend, changing over to light cigarettes or telling others that they no longer smoked.

More females took help more from health professionals, tried to quit with a friend and use self-help videos and literature. Males used the methods of exercising more or switching to chewing tobacco, snuff or other tobacco products. – Fatema Jawad

Hydrogen cars

The head of the world’s largest industrial gases group sees more than six million hydrogen-powered cars on Europe’s roads by the end of the next decade as consumers seek to cut pollution and avoid high oil prices.

“This is a conservative estimate,” said Wolfgang Reitzle, the chief executive of Germany’s Linde Group addressing automotive engineers at a congress in the German city of Aachen.

There are currently around 500 hydrogen vehicles worldwide, according to Linde. Reitzle urged politicians to be more active in long-term planning for a greener future with hydrogen, which emits only water vapour when burned.

“Utopias can become a reality if certain people want it,” he said.

Linde, which has global revenues of some 12 billion euros (US$15 billion), inaugurated a new hydrogen centre, which has a filling station, technology test centre and training centre, near Munich at a cost of three million euros, as it aims to position itself for growth in sustainable mobility.

The group is also working on producing hydrogen from regenerative sources – or “biohydrogen” – through biomass conversion, instead of through the conventional process that uses fossil fuels such as natural gas.

Reitzle said it would be necessary to spend around 3.5 billion euros to build a hydrogen infrastructure of 2,800 filling stations for the European car market, but high oil prices would eventually offset the cost. With petroleum consumption in developing countries set to rise in line with economic growth, the trend towards higher oil prices would continue, he said.

“If every person in China were to enjoy the same standards of life as in America, then some 81 million barrels of oil more would have to be produced every day in the world – over three times as many as all OPEC countries produce combined,” he said.

He urged German automotive companies to be at the forefront in developing ways to integrate the alternative fuel into future cars. “It would be a shame if Germany were to sleep through a trend in hydrogen technology the way we slept through hybrids,” he said.

BMW’s head of power train development, Klaus Borgmann, reaffirmed the carmaker’s belief in the potential for hydrogen to reduce carbon dioxide output.

“It combines a high energy density and low emissions, and that’s why we think it’s the trend going forward,” the BMW executive told reporters on the sidelines of the congress.

BMW is set to roll-out a 7 Series luxury saloon equipped with a hydrogen combustion engine in April 2007. Its long-term goal is to eventually offer hydrogen motors in all of its cars. – Samina Iqbal