Diet behavior and nutrition are critical for maintaining health and improving quality of life. Cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Poor dietary choices, such as excessively frequenting restaurants, consuming ready-to-eat foods from grocery stores, and ingesting ultra-processed foods (like frozen meals and pizzas), can adversely impact health. Despite this, research comparing dietary behaviors between smokers and non-smokers is limited. Using data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey 2017–2018, we analyzed diet behavior based on smoking status. Our findings reveal that smokers had a significant increase (90%) in the frequency of consuming frozen meals/pizzas in the past 30 days compared to non-smokers (coefficient: 1.9; 95% CI: 1.4, 2.6; p-value < 0.001). Additionally, over 70% of participants, regardless of their smoking status, were unaware of MyPlate, a nutritional guide created by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to encourage Americans to make healthier food choices. There is an urgent need to increase public awareness of MyPlate and promote a better understanding of healthy dietary behaviors.

Background: Lung cancer screening guidelines prioritize individuals with a history of smoking due to their higher risk of the disease. Methods: Our study examines the awareness and interest in low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) lung cancer screening among different smoking statuses using data from the National Cancer Institute’s Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) 6 (2022). We analyzed data from HINTS 6, including 3915 participants on smoking status, LDCT screening, and telehealth use. Participants were categorized as current smokers, former smokers, and non-smokers. Results: Current smokers had the highest likelihood of being recommended for LDCT screening (OR: 7.1, aOR: 10.4) compared with non-smokers. Former smokers also had increased odds of screening recommendations (OR: 3.1, aOR: 3.4) than non-smokers. Despite higher screening recommendations, current smokers exhibited significantly lower interest in cancer screening (interest rating score: 2.1) compared with non-smokers (interest rating score: 2.4) and former smokers (interest rating score: 2.5). Current smokers rated their telehealth care experiences more positively in terms of care quality compared with non-smokers. Conclusions: Our findings underscore a gap in cancer screening interest among current smokers despite their higher likelihood of being recommended for LDCT screening. The favorable perception of telehealth among current smokers provides an opportunity to enhance engagement and promote LDCT scan through telehealth care.

Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumannii) is a major cause of multidrug-resistant infections, yet resistance is often interpreted from a gene-centered perspective that does not explain inconsistent treatment outcomes. This narrative review redefines resistance as a treatment-associated phenotype arising from interactions among molecular resistance mechanisms, bacterial physiology, and the infection environment. Unlike previous reviews that examine determinants in isolation, this work integrates efflux, permeability, enzymatic activity, and target modification with phenotypic states such as structured growth, metabolic adaptation, and stress response within a unified framework. Within this framework, bacterial elimination depends on whether antibiotics maintain sufficient target engagement under infection conditions. Antibiotic performance varies with local environment, population diversity, and cellular activity, which explains the gap between laboratory susceptibility results and clinical response. Antimicrobial failure therefore results from the combined effects of impaired drug exposure, adaptive bacterial physiology, and resistance mechanisms within the infection environment. Based on this framework, therapeutic strategies are reconsidered with emphasis on enhancing drug access, modulating cellular behavior, and disrupting population structures that sustain persistence. The review also highlights key gaps, including limited representation of infection environments in experimental models, insufficient resolution of population diversity, and weak integration between pharmacokinetics and bacterial physiology. This framework supports a mechanistic interpretation of resistance and therapeutic response in A. baumannii.