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What will it take to get you to stop smoking? How about cold, hard cash?

Seventy percent of smokers in the U.S. say they want to quit, but studies show that only 2 percent to 3 percent manage to kick the habit each year. Incentives for quitting—avoiding potentially deadly lung cancer and premature wrinkling, saving thousands of dollars annually (in money spent on cigarettes and medical bills stemming from health-related ills), and perhaps even becoming president of the United States—are just not enough, it seems. Could cash succeed where all else failed?

It just might. Researchers report today in the New England Journal of Medicine that smokers were three times more likely to give up cigarettes in return for a few hundred bucks.

The biggest loser: Buying weight loss

Seems money trumps health when it comes to losing weight. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association today found that people were more likely to stick to weight-loss programs if they were offered cash incentives. And what about the reward of being thinner and healthier, of dropping pounds to lower one's risk of high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack and a slew of other obesity-related ails? Didn't hold a candle to the money prize, according to researchers.

Approximately 200 million Americans (two thirds of the population) are fat. That is to say, they are overweight or obese, according to standard body mass index criteria. Worldwide, obesity has become even more prevalent than hunger, and the trend shows no signs of reversing.


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