Long trips and onscreen smoking
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A risk during long trips
Long-distance travelers might want to stretch their legs more often, based on a new study linking lengthy trips to life-threatening blood clots. Sitting still has long been a suspect in cases of venous thromboembolism, known as VTE, in which dangerous blood clots form in the arms or legs and can travel to the lungs or heart. But scientific studies of the problem are surprisingly contradictory. Researchers led by Dr. Divay Chandra of the Harvard School of Public Health pooled 14 studies for a systematic review of more than 4,000 cases of VTE.Their analysis found that travel is associated with an almost three times higher risk of VTE. And for each two-hour increase in the length of the trip, the risk grew by 18 percent. For air travel, the risk was 26 percent higher for each two-hour increment. The authors can’t establish direct cause and effect, but they said the rise in cases that came along with longer travel makes the connection stronger.
The absolute risk of travelers developing VTE is still small, the authors say, estimated in one study to be 1 case per 4,600 airline flights. But they recommend travelers take precautions such as staying hydrated, moving around, or wearing compression stockings to improve circulation.
BOTTOM LINE: Blood clots known as venous thromboembolisms are three times more likely in people taking a long trip.
CAUTIONS: The studies analyzed all took place in Western countries, so their results need to be confirmed in other populations.
WHERE TO FIND IT: Annals of Internal Medicine, July 7, 2009
Smoking on the screen
Playing on sports teams appears to protect adolescents from picking up cigarette smoking, but watching movies with smoking scenes may encourage taking up the habit, even among athletes, according to research from Dartmouth Medical School.Dr. Anna Adachi-Mejia and colleagues surveyed more than 2,000 middle-schoolers in New Hampshire and Vermont. They asked the 9- to 14-year-olds whether they had seen a random sample of 50 popular movies, divided into four groups based on how many smoking scenes they had. Later, when the participants were 16 to 21 years old, they were asked whether they had smoked more than 100 cigarettes and whether they played on sports teams.
The second survey found that 17 percent of the participants had become smokers. As expected, those who did not play team sports were twice as likely to smoke as those who did play team sports.
Those who watched movies with the most smoking scenes were more likely to smoke than those who saw the fewest smoking scenes. But among sports players, the difference was steeper than among nonplayers. Athletes who watched movies with the most smoking scenes were seven times more likely to smoke than players who watched movies with the fewest smoking scenes. For nonplayers, the difference was only twofold.
“The risk of established smoking among team sports participants with the highest level of movie smoking exposure was similar to that among team sports nonparticipants in the lowest quartile of movie smoking exposure,’’ the authors wrote. “This highlights the importance both of encouraging team sports participation and minimizing movie smoking exposure as a way to reduce smoking.’’
BOTTOM LINE: Seeing more movie scenes of smoking appears to be linked to teenagers’ becoming confirmed smokers, whether they participated in team sports or not.
CAUTIONS: Study subjects were predominantly white and lived in northern New England, meaning results might be different among other groups. Participants who responded to the follow-up survey tended to have fewer risk factors for smoking than the original middle-schoolers.
WHERE TO FIND IT: Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, July 2009
ELIZABETH COONEY 
