Smoking is injurious to health-Get rid of it

Among smokers, the rate of decline in lung function is three times the usual rate. Breathlessness begins as lung function declines. Eventually, severe breathing problems develop from slow and progressive breathlessness resulting in death. Cigarette smoking increases the risk of periodontal disease which causes teeth to fall out, bad breath and swollen gums. Smoking worsens the general health of smokers. Teenagers who started smoking have a high rate of depressive symptoms and anxiety. Smokers must remember that the smoke released during smoking not only harms them but also their loved ones and also the environment. It is recommended that “Put it out before it puts you out”.

Why does smoking raise cancer risk?

Scientists say there are over 4,000 compounds in cigarette smoke. A sizeable number of them are toxic - they are bad for us and damage our cells. Some of them cause cancer - they are carcinogenic.

Tobacco smoke consists mainly of:

• Nicotine - this is not carcinogenic. However, it is highly addictive. Smokers find it very hard to quit because they are hooked on the nicotine. Nicotine is an extremely fast-acting drug. It reaches the brain within 15 seconds of being inhaled. If cigarettes and other tobacco products had no nicotine, the number of people who smoke every day would drop drastically. Without nicotine, the tobacco industry would collapse.
  
  Nicotine is used as a highly controlled insecticide. Exposure to sufficient amounts can lead to vomiting, seizures, depression of the CNS (central nervous system), and growth retardation. It can also undermine a fetus' proper development.

Two articles that appeared over the past week have once again put the spotlight on the question of how little one can smoke and still avoid the risks that accompany cigarette smoking.  The answer is that if you smoke even a couple of cigarettes, you are causing harm to yourself.  And, if you think cutting back on the number of cigarettes you smoke is a big deal, think again.

An article in the journal Tobacco Control reported that if you smoke 1-4 cigarettes a day, your risk of developing coronary artery disease increased for men about 2.75 times that of a non-smoking man, and for a woman almost 3 times the risk of a non-smoking woman.  For lung cancer the risk numbers were 2.79 times greater for men and about 5 times for women.  There was also a significantly increased risk of death from any cause at any age in “small time” smokers vs. non-smokers.

Another article released yesterday afternoon in the Journal of the American Medical Association talked about “harm reduction” in heavy smokers who decreased their intake of cigarettes by at least half.  In these people, if they cut there cigarette consumption in half, they reduced their risk of dying from lung cancer by about 27%.  If you completely stopped smoking, your risk of dying from lung cancer dropped by half.

That’s the good news.  The bad news is if you kept on smoking at any level, you did nothing to decrease your risk of heart disease or emphysema.

In the United States, the American Cancer Society estimates that about 172,500 people will develop lung cancer in 2005 and 163,510 will die from this disease.  We also estimate that there were 435,000 deaths from tobacco related illnesses in 2000. (See page 40 in this link)