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Smoking: It's Never Too Late to Stop
“I've smoked two packs of
cigarettes a day for 40 years — what's the use of quitting now?” less chance of cancer, heart attack, and lung disease, better blood circulation, healthier family members, particularly children and grandchildren, a healthy lifestyle example for children and grandchildren, no odor of smoke in your clothes and hair, and a more sensitive sense of smell. What Smoking Does Sometimes cigarette leads to a lung disease called chronic bronchitis. If you keep smoking, normal breathing may become harder and harder as emphysema develops. In emphysema, airways become blocked as the tissue of your lungs undergoes changes that make getting enough oxygen difficult. Smoking can shorten your life. It brings an early death to more than 400,000 people in the United States each year. Lifelong smokers have a 1 in 2 chance of dying from a smoking-related disease. Smoking doesn't just cut a few months off the end of your life. It reduces the life of the average smoker by 12 years. Smoking makes millions of Americans sick by causing: Heart Disease. If you have high blood pressure or high cholesterol (a fatty substance in the blood) and also smoke, you increase your chance of having a heart attack. Cancer. Smoking causes cancer of the lungs, mouth, larynx (voice box), and esophagus. It plays a role in cancer of the pancreas, kidney, bladder, and maybe the cervix in women. The chance of getting cancer grows as you smoke more cigarettes, smoke more years, or inhale deeply. Respiratory Problems. If you smoke, you are more likely than a nonsmoker to get the flu (influenza), pneumonia, or other infections that can interfere with your breathing (such as colds). Flu and pneumonia are very dangerous for older people. Osteoporosis. If you are an older woman who smokes, your chance of developing osteoporosis is greater. Women who are past menopause tend to lose bone strength and sometimes develop this bone-weakening disorder. Bones weakened by osteoporosis fracture more easily. Also, women smokers sometimes begin menopause sooner than the average woman does. Good News About Quitting As soon as you stop smoking, your heart and circulatory system (the arteries and veins that blood flows through) start getting better. Your chance of heart attack, stroke, and other circulatory diseases begins to drop. The flow of blood to your hands and feet gets stronger. Your breathing may be more difficult in the first few weeks, but should become easier a few months after your last cigarette. Quitting smoking can't undo permanent lung damage. It may, however, help slow further damage to the lungs. Your chance of getting cancer from smoking also begins to shrink. Within 10 to 15 years after quitting, the risk of cancer and heart disease is almost as low as that of a nonsmoker. Nicotine Is A Drug In cigarette smoke there are
thousands of chemicals. Some are known to cause cancer. Another, nicotine,
is a very addictive drug. At first, when you smoke, nicotine makes you
feel good and you want to smoke more. Soon, your body starts to need more
nicotine in order to feel good. Then you smoke even more to keep getting
that pleasurable feeling. Breaking the Habit Smoking is a strong addiction for both your body and mind. That is why it is so hard to stop. But, people do succeed. Since 1965 over 30 million Americans have quit. There is help. You can: read self-help literature, take a quit-smoking class, use individual or group counseling, join a support group, get a friend to quit with you, take medicine to help with nicotine withdrawal, or use nicotine replacement therapy. Nicotine chewing gum is available without a doctor's prescription. The nicotine patch is also available over the counter. Nicotine nasal spray requires a doctor's prescription. Your doctor might also prescribe a
nicotine inhaler. Cigars, Chewing Tobacco, and Snuff Are Not Safer Some people think smokeless tobacco (chewing tobacco and snuff), pipes, and cigars are safer than cigarettes. They are not. Using smokeless tobacco can cause cancer of the mouth, a pre-cancerous lesion known as oral leukoplakia, nicotine addiction, and possibly cancer of the larynx and esophagus, as well as tooth and heart problems. Pipe and cigar smokers may develop cancer of the mouth, lip, larynx, pharynx, and esophagus. Those who inhale have the same chance of lung cancer as cigarette smokers have. If You Are Around Someone Who Smokes Passive smoking happens when a
nonsmoker breathes smoke from someone else's cigarette, pipe, or cigar. It
is also called secondhand smoke. We now know that such secondhand smoke is
unsafe. People who don't smoke but live or work with smokers are more
likely to develop lung cancer than other nonsmokers. In fact, each year an
estimated 3,000 people who don't smoke die of lung cancer because of
secondhand smoke. It has also been linked to heart disease in nonsmokers. Where To Get Help Organizations, doctors, and clinics
offering stop-smoking programs are listed in telephone books under
headings such as “Smokers' Treatment and Information Centers.” American Cancer Society
American Lung Association Several government agencies also have information on the dangers of smoking. Office on Smoking and
HealthCenters for Disease Control and Prevention National Cancer InstituteOffice of
Cancer Communications For more information on FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Action on Aging distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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