Discussion
Looks like Darwinism at work.
Smoking has long been proven to make men impotent. The news today is that it reduces female fertility.
These 2 combined should help prevent us from being over-run with chavs, 100% of whom smoke.
Smoking 'cuts IVF success rate'
Smoking can make a woman years older in reproductive terms - significantly reducing her chances of successful IVF treatment, Dutch scientists have said.
Researchers looked at 8,457 women aged 20 to 40 who had had IVF treatment.
A 30-year-old non-smoker had the same chance of conceiving as a 20-year-old smoker, they told Human Reproduction.
Couples having IVF treatment are told smoking can cut success rates but a UK expert said being able to say by how much might encourage more to quit.
However, the researchers did not compare all age groups and warned they could not say if smoking always adds 10 years to a woman's reproductive age, whatever age she actually is.
The researchers, from 12 hospitals across the Netherlands, looked at data for 8,457 women who had undergone one cycle of IVF treatment between 1983 and 1995.
All had being trying to become pregnant for at least a year.
Weight risk
More than 40% of the women were smokers at the time of undergoing their first attempt at IVF and more than 7% were clinically overweight.
The women were divided into four groups, depending on the cause of each couple's fertility problems; male fertility disorder, fallopian tube problems, other clinical explanations - such as polycystic ovaries or endometriosis, or unexplained fertility problems, known as subfertility.
A total of 1,828 were being treated for unexplained subfertility. The overall live birth rate per cycle was 15.2%.
Older women had lower IVF success rates no matter what the cause of their fertility problems was.
Overall, the live birth rate for smokers was 28% lower than non-smokers.
Among women with unexplained subfertility, the live birth rate was a third lower for smokers, at 13% compared to 20% for non-smokers.
The miscarriage risk was a fifth higher for smokers in this group compared to non-smokers, at 21.4% compared to 16.4%.
Being significantly overweight also cut women's chance of a successful pregnancy by a third.
Professor Didi Braat from Radbound University, who worked on the study, said: "Smoking has a devastating impact."
But she added: "This also indicates that subfertile couples may help their chances of successful treatment by life-style changes.
"As the effects of smoking and being overweight were greatest among women with unexplained subfertility, these results suggest that this group in particular may be able to improve the outcome of subfertility treatment by quitting smoking and losing weight."
Dr Simon Fishel, a specialist at the UK's Care in the Park fertility clinics, said: "We know that smoking reduces a woman's chance of having a live birth and of getting pregnant, and 10 years sounds about right in terms of quantifying the effect.
"One thing couples know is that age is a significant factor in IVF success.
"So if you say to them that by smoking, they give themselves the same chance of success as if they were 10 years older, it brings home to them the effect the habit has."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/4416663.stm
Published: 2005/04/07 00:23:59 GMT
© BBC MMV
Smoking has long been proven to make men impotent. The news today is that it reduces female fertility.
These 2 combined should help prevent us from being over-run with chavs, 100% of whom smoke.
Smoking 'cuts IVF success rate'
Smoking can make a woman years older in reproductive terms - significantly reducing her chances of successful IVF treatment, Dutch scientists have said.
Researchers looked at 8,457 women aged 20 to 40 who had had IVF treatment.
A 30-year-old non-smoker had the same chance of conceiving as a 20-year-old smoker, they told Human Reproduction.
Couples having IVF treatment are told smoking can cut success rates but a UK expert said being able to say by how much might encourage more to quit.
However, the researchers did not compare all age groups and warned they could not say if smoking always adds 10 years to a woman's reproductive age, whatever age she actually is.
The researchers, from 12 hospitals across the Netherlands, looked at data for 8,457 women who had undergone one cycle of IVF treatment between 1983 and 1995.
All had being trying to become pregnant for at least a year.
Weight risk
More than 40% of the women were smokers at the time of undergoing their first attempt at IVF and more than 7% were clinically overweight.
The women were divided into four groups, depending on the cause of each couple's fertility problems; male fertility disorder, fallopian tube problems, other clinical explanations - such as polycystic ovaries or endometriosis, or unexplained fertility problems, known as subfertility.
A total of 1,828 were being treated for unexplained subfertility. The overall live birth rate per cycle was 15.2%.
Older women had lower IVF success rates no matter what the cause of their fertility problems was.
Overall, the live birth rate for smokers was 28% lower than non-smokers.
Among women with unexplained subfertility, the live birth rate was a third lower for smokers, at 13% compared to 20% for non-smokers.
The miscarriage risk was a fifth higher for smokers in this group compared to non-smokers, at 21.4% compared to 16.4%.
Being significantly overweight also cut women's chance of a successful pregnancy by a third.
Professor Didi Braat from Radbound University, who worked on the study, said: "Smoking has a devastating impact."
But she added: "This also indicates that subfertile couples may help their chances of successful treatment by life-style changes.
"As the effects of smoking and being overweight were greatest among women with unexplained subfertility, these results suggest that this group in particular may be able to improve the outcome of subfertility treatment by quitting smoking and losing weight."
Dr Simon Fishel, a specialist at the UK's Care in the Park fertility clinics, said: "We know that smoking reduces a woman's chance of having a live birth and of getting pregnant, and 10 years sounds about right in terms of quantifying the effect.
"One thing couples know is that age is a significant factor in IVF success.
"So if you say to them that by smoking, they give themselves the same chance of success as if they were 10 years older, it brings home to them the effect the habit has."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/4416663.stm
Published: 2005/04/07 00:23:59 GMT
© BBC MMV
bruciebabe said:
But it makes me look so cool I'm not going to stop.
Spew and keyboard moment........eeeeerrrrrgggghhhhhh!!
Do we HAVE to publish such disgusting photos, it's bad enough having to endure ChavChas and his Camel and bLIAR and his wicked witch without being involuntarily invoked to spew by such scum..................
tuscan_thunder said:
brucie, can I ask, in your opinion does smoking make you a chav or is it just that a high percentage of chavs smoke and it's tainting all smokers with the same brush?
Serious question, serious answer. Smoking is most prevalent in the lowest socio economic groups where it is nearly ubiquitous. The top socio economic group have minimal smoking prevalence and there is a straight line graph in between. Therefore smoking is a good indicator of where someone fits in socioeconomicaly and thus how intelligent and educated they are.
bruciebabe said:
I was going to give up smoking.
But the more patronising self righteous nannying gits kept telling me to the more determined I became not to.
I usually smoke small cigars.
I save the really big Cuban bastards for no smoking day.
MOTHER! Get back indoors at once!
bruciebabe said:
brucie, can I ask, in your opinion does smoking make you a chav or is it just that a high percentage of chavs smoke and it's tainting all smokers with the same brush?
Serious question, serious answer. Smoking is most prevalent in the lowest socio economic groups where it is nearly ubiquitous. The top socio economic group have minimal smoking prevalence and there is a straight line graph in between. Therefore smoking is a good indicator of where someone fits in socioeconomicaly and thus how intelligent and educated they are.
Does that mean if all chavs smoke they'll end up being bred out of society since they'll become infertile?
maxrider said:
Therefore smoking is a good indicator of where someone fits in socioeconomicaly and thus how intelligent and educated they are.
Crap
You are misinformed. Here are the stats from 1998, they have polarised a lot more since:
The NHS Cancer Plan
27th September 2000
Executive Summary
Overview and Forward
Cancer index
Full cancer plan (98 pages) [PDF]
The section on smoking is included as part of ‘Improving Prevention’ and is reproduced below.
Improving prevention
· new national and local targets to reduce smoking in disadvantaged groups
· new local alliances for action on smoking
· support in primary care to help people quit smoking
· £2.5 million for research into smoking cessation
· national five-a-day programme to increase fruit and vegetable consumption
· National School Fruit Scheme
· raising public awareness
2.1 There are many causes of cancer and the origins of the disease in each person may differ. Genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors interact in many cases. Poverty, unemployment and other broader causes of ill health are linked to cancer too, and action across government to tackle health inequalities will in time have an impact on cancer. But for many of the common forms of cancer, smoking and poor diet are by far the most important factors which we can do something about.
Smoking
2.2 Smoking is the cause of a third of all cancers. Since the widespread availability of cigarettes there has been a huge increase in deaths from lung cancer, which was previously a rare disease. From the 1950s, evidence of the serious health effects and the fatal diseases caused by cigarette smoking has been accumulating. Smoking not only causes most cases of lung cancer but is the major cause of cancers of the mouth, nasal passages, larynx, bladder and pancreas. It also plays a part in causing cancers of the oesophagus, stomach, kidney and in leukaemia.
2.3 Smoking kills people. In total smoking kills around 120,000 people in the UK per year and over half a million in the European Union. It is addictive and two thirds of smokers want to quit across all socio-economic groups. Many smokers have managed to stop and this is reflected in the falling rate of lung cancer in men. The evidence is clear: there are very positive health gains of stopping smoking at whatever age. Stopping smoking, even well into middle age, avoids most of the subsequent risk of lung cancer and stopping before middle age avoids 90% of the risk attributable to tobacco.
2.4 Smoking is also the major cause of health inequalities. In 1998 in England, 15% of those in the professional socioeconomic groups smoked compared to 36% in the unskilled manual group. If all men of working age, irrespective of socioeconomic group, had the same mortality rates from lung cancer as those in professional groups then there would be 2,300 fewer deaths from lung cancer each year.
2.5 People have a right to smoke, and make their own choices about how to live their lives. But as smoking is so addictive and harmful, the government’s role is to ensure people are fully informed about the risks, and have a real choice about whether to quit.
2.6 The government’s strategy for reducing smoking is set out in the White Paper Smoking Kills. Targets were set to reduce smoking in children from 13% in 1996 to 9% in 2010, in adults from 28% in 1996 to 24% by 2010 and in pregnant women from 23% in 1995 to 15% by 2010. Achieving these targets will mean around 1.5 million fewer smokers in England.
2.7 The tobacco control strategy already includes: the commitment to ban tobacco advertising new specialist NHS smoking cessation services Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) will be available on prescription from GPs the Committee on Safety of Medicines will also be asked to consider whether NRT can be made available for general sale rather than only through pharmacies or on prescription Zyban, a new treatment to help smokers give up, available on prescription from primary care updated guidance on smoking cessation for health care professionals and commissioners from the Health Development Agency (HDA) a new best practice code to enforce the law against cigarette sales to children under 16 a new media campaign and an NHS smokers helpline.
New targets to reduce inequalities in smoking
2.8 The NHS Plan set out the intention to introduce new national health inequalities targets. With the new interventions such as NRT and Zyban to assist smokers who want to quit, and the new resources now available, the time is right to do this for smoking. So this plan introduces new national and local targets to address inequalities in smoking rates between socio-economic groups. At national level, for the first time we are making the explicit commitment that we shall reduce smoking rates among manual groups from 32% in 1998 to 26% by 2010, so that we can narrow the gap between manual and non-manual groups.
2.9 We shall also set local targets making explicit what this means for the 20 health authorities with the highest smoking rates, to help focus action in the areas where it is most needed, and we shall support this with targeted resources and initiatives.
Meeting the new targets
2.10 Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) will take the lead in commissioning and, where appropriate, providing smoking cessation services. So all Health Improvement Programmes should set out how PCTs and their partners will develop these services and target the groups most at risk. National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) and HDA guidance on the best interventions will help. By 2002 every PCT will have a trained healthcare professional to support smokers wishing to quit.
2.11 The Department of Health will put up to £1 million into funding new local alliances for action on smoking. This will establish a national network to form the bridge between the treatment services and the local authorities and community groups, businesses, schools, churches and faith communities, leisure facilities and minority ethnic groups. They will work with the most deprived sections of their communities to make a difference.
2.12 The Healthy Community Collaborative approach announced in the NHS Plan will be used to disseminate information on what works well and to harness primary and community efforts with particular target groups. The first elements of the Collaborative should be in place by the end of 2000.
2.13 Businesses have a key role in this challenge. There is a clear business case for helping employees to give up smoking. The government will contribute £250,000 to support a national initiative for major employers to help them develop smoking policies for their employees.
2.14 Smoking prevalence is particularly high in Bangladeshi men (47%) and African Caribbean men (32%). Funding for smoking cessation work with black and minority ethnic groups has been increased to £1 million.
2.15 There will be new pilots in ten deprived areas to reduce smoking prevalence in communities where there are particular opportunities for focused support, such as prisons and hospitals.
Research
2.16 The Department of Health is spending £2.5 million on a programme of research to support policy on smoking cessation, with a particular focus on disadvantaged groups, children and pregnant women.
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