Passive smoking toll on children's health revealed

More than 20,000 chest infections, 120,000 bouts of middle ear disease and 200 cases of meningitis in young people are also thought to be linked to the effects of second-hand smoke.

Furthermore, 40 babies die from sudden infant death syndrome (SID) as a result of passive smoking every year – one in five of all SID deaths, the UK-wide report from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said.

It underlined that children's smaller lungs and under-developed immune systems made them more likely to pick up chest and ear infections triggered by passive smoking.

Some two million children live in a home with an adult who smokes and many more are exposed to second-hand smoke elsewhere, the study said.

Funded by Cancer Research UK and carried out by the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, the research found that children whose parents both smoked were almost nine times as likely to be exposed.

Children whose parents or brothers and sisters smoked were also 90 per cent more likely to grow up to become smokers themselves.

The report calls for the targeting young adult smokers through adverts, tobacco price increases, purges on tobacco smuggling and illegal trading, taking cigarettes off display and toning down the packaging.

Other suggested measures include banning smoking in cars, cutting down exposure to images of people smoking in the media, and stiff penalties for those who sell cigarettes to under-age children.

The chairman of the RCP's tobacco advisory group, Prof John Britton, said: "This report isn't just about protecting children from passive smoking, it's about taking smoking completely out of children's lives."

The executive director of nursing and service delivery at the Royal College of Nursing, Janet Davies, said: "Today's report should come as a stark warning to anyone who smokes around babies and children. The alarming evidence in the report makes it a moral duty to protect young people's health from the dangers of passive smoking."

The British Heart Foundation's director of policy and communications, Betty McBride, added: "The tragedy of passive smoking is the lives cut short or ruined through ill-health as a result of someone else's deadly habit."

As part of the study York University's Christine Godfrey and Steve Parrott, from the Department of Health Sciences, investigated the financial costs of passive smoking.

They estimate that it leads to primary care visits by children costing 9.7m and hospital admissions costing 13.6m every year. Providing children with drugs to treat asthma developed as a result of passive smoking costs a further 4m every year.

The future costs of treating smokers who take up the habit because of exposure to parental smoking could be as much as 5.7m annually and their lost productivity due to illness and smoking breaks may be as much as 5.6m every year.

Prof Godfrey, head of the Department of Health Sciences at York University, said: "It is important that we understand passive smoking has a serious cost and not just in terms of the impact on health.

"Our calculations demonstrate the direct financial burden placed on the NHS as a result of passive smoking in children but there will be further costs, for example in terms of educational achievement and earning potential, that should also be taken into consideration."

Indian spice may slow liver disease

Hair dye and smoking could damage the liver but the Indian spice

curcumin may slow down the progress of liver disease, experts said today.

One study examined the effect of curcumin – which gives the curry spice turmeric its bright yellow colour – on disease in mice while a second looked at the effects of smoking and hair dye use among humans.

Curcumin has been used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine – practised on the Indian subcontinent – to treat a wide range of gastrointestinal disorders.

Previous studies also suggested it has anti-inflammatory properties and works as an antioxidant.

The latest study, published in the journal Gut, looked at damage to the liver caused by progressive inflammatory illnesses.

These conditions can be triggered by genetic faults or autoimmune disease, causing the liver's bile ducts to become inflamed, scarred and blocked.

The damage to the tissues can be irreversible and cause progression to liver cirrhosis, which can be fatal.