News.Scotland.Org

December, 19

A new study in the field of Lung Cancer has recently revealed that lack of sunlight can increase the risk of lung cancer. This new research has added a new chapter in the studies been undertaken in this stream. Researchers have found out that, exposure to ultraviolet B provides the body the much needed vitamin D which helps to lower the lung cancer rates.

As it is known that smoking is the main cause for lung cancer and majority of the lung cancer cases are associated with smoking, about 40,000 people die of lung cancer every year in UK, and it is the most common forms of cancer. The effect of sunlight to lower the lung cancer rates has been monitored in many other countries with positive results. It is told that the rate of UVB light increases as one moves nearer to the equator and, if look at the records we can notice that the cases of lung cancer is more in the countries far from the equator.

Studies were constantly going on in this field to get into the core of the cause and ways to eradicate lung cancer. And this new study has proved out to be a blessing in the field of lung cancer and its treatments.

What is Lung Cancer?

Lung cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the lung. Normal lung tissue is made up of cells that are programmed by nature to create lungs of a certain shape and function. Sometimes the instructions to a cell go haywire and that cell and its offspring reproduce wildly, without regard for the shape and function of a lung. That wild reproduction can form tumors that clog up the lung and make it stop functioning as it should.

Scotland, Dec 19: The usage of methadone in Scotland has increased up to 35 per cent over the past five years as according to the new statistics. This is because of the increased rate of heroin addiction level. Easy availability of heroine is encouraging the addiction rate to a greater extent. The drug included in Class A is currently available for about £30-£100 a gram depending on the quality as the illegal supplies from Afghanistan is flooding the market.

Nearly 20,000 about one third among the addicted population are given treatment using methadone. The number of prescription for methadone has reached half a million and the cost for prescribing the heroin substitute amounts to £12,683,660 for the year 2006-7.

According to the research conducted by the Scottish Drugs Misuse database, out of 12,222 new individuals who had been reported in the previous year, nearly 68 per cent of them are taking heroin de-addiction treatment. The report also shed light on the lack of proper treatment services. Out of those cocaine users 44 per cent of them are from Clyde area and NHS Greater Glasgow that does not have a cocaine treatment centre. People have to wait for a long time to get an appointment with the doctors that is also given emphasis in the report.

“There has been a huge rise in the use of heroin over the past five years. Eight years before two out of ten young homeless people are addicted to heroin and now it has increased to nine out of ten. Easy availability of heroin is the main reason behind it,” said Tam Hendry, the chief executive of Street work UK that voices for the homeless people.

While commenting on this issue the director of the Centre for Drug Misuse at Glasgow University, Professor Neil McKeganey said: “The Scottish government focus on the ‘balanced array of polices’ but in contradiction to that the over prescribing of methadone is on a rise. We have no option to get them off methadone it is paving another way on top of heroin.”

Meanwhile the community safety minister Fergus Ewing assured that he will launch a comprehensive drug strategy early next year.