Penn State’s new LionPulse program identifies “Health Champions” at participating Penn State campuses, who will employ unique methods to help students, faculty and staff make positive lifelong changes to their health with assistance from grant funds made available by the Penn State strategic plan.
Reducing nicotine intake, a step towards helping smokers reduce — or break — the habit, can be influenced by the price and availability of reduced-nicotine cigarettes, according to Penn State researchers.
Researchers tend to believe that either people select their friends based on shared behaviors, or that they make friends who then shape their behaviors. A team of Penn State researchers say both friend selection and friend influence may be at work for students. They add that gender can also play a role in how friends influence each other. The findings may lead to better prevention and intervention programs for risky behaviors such as smoking and deliquency.
Most of Pennsylvania’s high school and middle school students are tobacco-free, but the use of cigarettes, and their digital counterpart, e-cigarettes, is still a cause for concern, according to Penn State researchers.
Doctors ask patients about smoking habits for the same reason they check weight, blood pressure, breathing and heart beat during a visit.
Matthew Weaver, assistant professor of psychology at Mercyhurst University, will discuss the dual-reinforcement model for nicotine and how that affects why people smoke when he visits Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, on Nov. 7 for the next presentation of the Colloquium Series in Psychological Sciences and Human Behavior.
Penn State researchers have found that teens who are sensation seekers -- people who seek out new and intense experiences -- may be more likely to smoke cigarettes.
E-cigarettes are addictive, but they may not be as addictive as regular cigarettes, according to Penn State researchers. E-cigarettes include a range of battery-powered devices that turn a liquid mixture into a vapor that is then inhaled.
Previous research has suggested that moderate drinking may actually be healthy and that not drinking may have health risks. However, both the benefits for moderate drinkers and risks for non-drinkers may be a bit overstated, according to Penn State researchers who examined the drinking habits of middle-aged adults.
Researchers from Penn State College of Medicine and College of Agricultural Sciences report a method for measuring free radicals in cigarette smoke that could help improve our understanding of the relationship between these substances and health.
Thomas Gould, head of the Department of Biobehavioral Health, has received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the role of genes in nicotine withdrawal.
Electronic cigarettes produce highly-reactive free radicals – molecules associated with cell damage and cancer – and may pose a health risk to users, according to researchers at Penn State College of Medicine.
Cigarettes have been convicted of many crimes over the years. But the jury's still out on whether their younger, more fashionable cousins -- electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes -- will meet the same fate.
Penn State Hershey Medical Center’s Tobacco Intervention Program, or TIP, support group meets from 6:30 to 8 p.m. every Monday evening at the University Conference Center on the Penn State Hershey campus. The free group sessions guide participants from decision-making to quitting through relapse prevention. Interested individuals should call 1-800-243-1455 to register and for directions.
For some cigarette smokers, strategies to aid quitting work well, while for many others no method seems to work. Researchers have now identified an aspect of brain activity that helps to predict the effectiveness of a reward-based strategy as motivation to quit smoking.
