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Extend smoking ban to parks and pub gardens, redemption of the butter dish, and ex-archbishop backs assisted dying

Smoking should be banned in pub gardens and the NHS should do more to encourgafe smokers to switch to nicotine only e-cigarettes, according to a major new report by the Royal Society for Public Health.

The Guardian and BBC both report that health chiefs are being urged to take a more positive attitude to tobacco substitutes, though the NHS cannot prescribe them as one have yet to receive medicines license, and considering extending existing exclusion zones, in bars, and around schools and parks.

The Independent reports further evidence to suggest that much maligned saturated fat might not be the one way ticket to heart disease that fad diets have been telling us.

The study, published in the BMJ, did not find that fatty foods like eggs, cream and chocolate resulted in an increased risk of death. However it did find risks associated with ‘industrially produced trans-fats’, made form hydrogenated oils that used to be common in margarine, baked goods and crisps.

‘Trans-fats’ made from hydrogenated oils, and once used in margarine, snack foods and packaged baked foods such as some cakes and crisps, are linked with a greater risk of death from coronary heart disease

And finally, a former archbishop of Canterbury and current member of the house of Lords has come out in support of assisted dying ahead of the bill’s debate in the House of Commons next month.

Lord Carey told the Telegraph has attacked the idea that bearing insufferable pain was a ‘noble’ thing to do, and said offering people the choice to end their lives under these circumstances was a ‘profoundly Christian’ thing to do.


          

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