By Thomas J. Glynn, PhD

As the official sponsor of birthdays, the American Cancer Society has every reason to be proud of a "toddler" celebrating its third birthday this year. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act - aka the Tobacco Control Act - was strongly supported by ACS and ACS CAN and signed into law by President Barack Obama on June 22, 2009.

For the first time and after nearly 2 decades of debate, this historic legislation gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate tobacco products. In doing so, Congress enabled the FDA to establish the Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), which is charged with regulating the manufacture, marketing, and distribution of tobacco products in order to reduce tobacco use by children under 18 and protect public health.

More specifically, the Tobacco Control Act authorizes the FDA to act in a number of ways, including:

• Restricting tobacco sales, distribution, and marketing
• Requiring stronger health warnings on packaging and in advertisements
• Requiring disclosure of tobacco product ingredients
• Reducing (but not eliminating) the amount of nicotine in tobacco products
• Creating standards for tobacco products
• Regulating "modified risk" (i.e. potentially harm reducing) tobacco products, such as e-cigarettes, snus, dissolvables, etc.

So, with the authority to take these types of action, how is the Tobacco Control Act doing 3 years later? Is it having its intended effects? Are Americans - tobacco users and non-users alike - beginning to see its hoped-for health benefits? To best address these questions, it will help to take a small step back and consider the history of the Tobacco Control Act, take a brief look at the Act's accomplishments to date, and then look a bit into the future. More...

The Relationship between Weight and Breast Cancer

By Lauren Teras, PhD

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women today. More than 1 million women world-wide are diagnosed with this cancer each year, mostly in the 50 and older age group.  Breast Cancer Awareness Month highlights this international public health problem, and it is a good time to consider ways in which we can reduce our risk of this cancer.  While many factors beyond our control contribute to risk, like age and family history, we do know of a few ways we can lower the risk of breast cancer.

Worldwide obesity has more than doubled since 1980. Once considered a problem only in high income countries, being overweight and obese is now dramatically on the rise all over the world, particularly in urban areas. As of 2008, the World Health Organization estimated that 1.4 billion adults were overweight, including 300 million obese individuals.  In the year 2000, for the first time in human history, the number of adults worldwide who were overweight was greater than the number of adults who were underweight. In fact, approximately 65% of the world's population lives in countries where being overweight and obese kills more people than being underweight. The U.S. is near the front of the pack as the country with the 4^th highest rate of obesity; about 2/3 of people in America are overweight, including approximately 1/3 are obese. More...