Health Highlights: May 30, 2008

The researchers said doctors needed to boost efforts to educate primary caregivers about the risks of household toxins.

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500,000 Asian Youth Targeted by Tobacco Companies: WHO

Tobacco advertising that targets teens is putting half-a-billion young Asians at risk for tobacco-related diseases, says the Asia-Pacific director of the World Health Organization.

In a statement issued on the eve of the WHO-designated "World No Tobacco Day," Shigeru Omi said the tobacco industry's marketing efforts aim to persuade half-a-billion young people in the Western Pacific to try their first cigarette,Agence France-Pressereported.

"Youngsters are led to believe that certain types of cigarettes do not contain nicotine, when in fact they do," Omi said.

He restated the WHO's demand for a total ban on tobacco advertising and noted that partial bans simply allow tobacco companies to shift from one promotional strategy to another,AFPreported.

The U.N. agency spokesman accused tobacco companies of "falsely associating use of their products with desirable qualities such as glamour, energy and sex appeal, as well as exciting outdoor activities and adventure."

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Fruits and Vegetables May Protect Against Lung Cancer

Eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and drinking black or green tea may help reduce smokers' lung cancer risk, suggests a University of California, Los Angeles study.

Researchers looked at the eating habits of 558 lung cancer patients and 837 people without the disease. People who ate three servings of vegetables a day were 1.6 times less likely to develop lung cancer than those who didn't eat three servings. People who ate three or more servings of fruit were one-fold less likely to develop lung cancer, and those who drank one cup of black or green tea a day had a 0.8-fold reduced risk,CBC Newsreported.

Fruits, vegetables and tea contain flavonoids, which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

"What we found was extremely interesting, that several types of flavonoids are associated with a reduced risk of lung cancer among smokers," said Dr. Zuo-Feng Zhang, a professor of public health and epidemiology at UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center,CBC Newsreported.

Zhang and colleagues believe flavonoids may help stop the development of blood vessels that feed tumors, preventing them from invading healthy tissue.

The study appears in the May issue of the journalCancer.