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Smoking
Cessation
The three most important reasons are:
1. Heart disease
2. Lung cancer
3. Emphysema
In addition there are the 10 other surprising -- reasons to
stick to your resolution in 2005, and quit smoking:
1. Smoking Speeds Up Mental Decline: Alzheimer's Disease:
2. Smoking Raises Risk of Autoimmune Disease:
3. Maternal Smoking Doubles Risk: Smoking increases the risk
of sudden infant death syndrome
4. Colic: Smoking Makes Babies Irritable, Too
5. And Increased Risk of Impotence
6. Blindness: Smoking Raises Risk of Age-Related Macular
Degeneration
7. Rheumatoid Arthritis: Genetically Vulnerable Smokers
Increase Their Risk Even More
8. Even Living With a Smoker Raises Risk of Snoring
9. Acid Reflux: Heavy Smoking Linked to Heartburn
10. Breast Cancer: Active Smoking Plays Bigger Role Than
Thought
11. Smoking is linked to certain colon cancers.
12. Smoking may increase the risk of depression in young
people,
13. Some studies have linked smoking to thyroid disease.
Secondhand smoke is a toxic cocktail consisting of poisons
and carcinogens. There are over 4000 chemical compounds in
secondhand smoke; 200 of which are known to be poisonous,
and upwards of 60 have been identified as carcinogens.
When a cigarette is smoked, about half of the smoke is
inhaled/exhaled by the smoker and the other half floats
around in the air. Environmental tobacco smoke or secondhand
smoke plays a part in more health problems than you might
realize. The following facts point out why it is so
important to have smoking bans in place. No one should be
forced to breathe in air tainted with cigarette smoke.
The U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has classified
secondhand smoke as a Group A carcinogen. Cancers linked to
passive smoking include:
Lung cancer
Nasal sinus cavity cancer
Cancer of the cervix
Breast cancer
Bladder cancer
Children and secondhand smoke:
Low birth weight for gestational age
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
Acute lower respiratory tract infections
Asthma
Chronic respiratory symptoms
Middle ear infections
Secondhand smoke and the heart:
Heart disease mortality - an estimated 35,000 to 40,000
deaths are caused from heart disease in people who are not
current smokers, but who are exposed to ETS
Acute and chronic coronary heart disease
Passive smoking has been linked to the narrowing of the
carotid arteries, which carry blood to the brain
Exposure to secondhand smoke hastens hardening of the
arteries, a condition known as atherosclerosis.
Secondhand smoke is serious business, and should be a
concern for anyone who breathes it in.
Non-smokers breathing secondhand smoke share some of the
health risks smokers face. But smokers do face the worst of
it
While secondhand smoke may not
kill as many people as smoking does,
It is still a killer.
Why is it So Hard to
Quit Smoking?
If you've ever wondered why it's so hard to quit smoking,
it's because of nicotine.
Nicotine is a substance found in tobacco and is one of the
most addicting drugs in the world. When you smoke, you
become both physically and psychologically dependent on
nicotine. You body and your mind feels like they need it to
keep going. In order to quit smoking, you have to break both
of those addictions.
The nicotine makes you feel good, which makes you want to
smoke more and more. But it also interferes with the flow of
information between nerve cells, so you have to smoke more
to get that good feeling. Eventually, you develop a
tolerance for nicotine, and that makes you have to smoke
more. So in order to quit smoking, you have to break this
cycle, and each time you do quit, it gets harder and harder
to break it because you're starting from scratch every time.
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