smoking kills

Why quit smoking?

Most people know that smoking can cause lung cancer, but it can also cause many other cancers and illnesses.

Smoking kills around 114,000 people in the UK each year.

Of these deaths, about 42,800 are from smoking-related cancers, 30,600 from cardiovascular disease and 29,100 die slowly from emphysemaand other chronic lung diseases.

How do cigarettes damage health?

Cigarettes contain more than 4000 chemical compounds and at least 400 toxic substances.

When you inhale, a cigarette burns at 700°C at the tip and around 60°C in the core. This heat breaks down the tobacco to produce various toxins.

As a cigarette burns, the residues are concentrated towards the butt.

The products that are most damaging are:

• tar, a carcinogen (substance that causes cancer)
• nicotine is addictive and increases cholesterol levels in your body
• carbon monoxide reduces oxygen in the body
• components of the gas and particulate phases cause chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD).

The damage caused by smoking is influenced by:

• the number of cigarettes smoked
• whether the cigarette has a filter
• how the tobacco has been prepared.

Major diseases caused by smoking

Cardiovascular disease

Cardiovascular disease is the main cause of death due to smoking.

Hardening of the arteries is a process that develops over years, when cholesterol and other fats deposit in the arteries, leaving them narrow, blocked or rigid. When the arteries narrow , blood clots are likely to form.

Smoking accelerates the hardening and narrowing process in your arteries: it starts earlier and blood clots are two to four times more likely.

Cardiovasular disease can take many forms depending on which blood vessels are involved, and all of them are more common in people who smoke.

• Coronary thrombosis: a blood clot in the arteries supplying the heart, which can lead to a heart attack. Around 30 per cent are caused by smoking.
• Cerebral thrombosis: the vessels to the brain can become blocked, which can lead to collapse, stroke andparalysis.
• If the kidney arteries are affected, then high blood pressure or kidney failure results.
• Blockage to the vascular supply to the legs may lead to gangrene andamputation.

Smokers tend to develop coronary thrombosis 10 years earlier than non-smokers, and make up 9 out of 10 heart bypass patients.

Cancer

Smokers are more likely to get cancer than non-smokers. This is particularly true of lung cancer, throat cancer and mouth cancer, which hardly ever affect non-smokers.

The link between smoking and lung cancer is clear.

• Ninety percent of lung cancer cases are due to smoking.
• If no-one smoked, lung cancer would be a rare diagnosis - only 0.5 per cent of people who've never touched a cigarette develop lung cancer.
• One in ten moderate smokers and almost one in five heavy smokers (more than 15 cigarettes a day) will die of lung cancer.

The more cigarettes you smoke in a day, and the longer you've smoked, the higher your risk of lung cancer. Similarly, the risk rises the deeper you inhale and the earlier in life you started smoking.

For ex-smokers, it takes approximately 15 years before the risk of lung cancer drops to the same as that of a non-smoker.

If you smoke, the risk of contracting mouth cancer is four times higher than for a non-smoker. Cancer can start in many areas of the mouth, with the most common being on or underneath the tongue, or on the lips.

Alternative Therapies

It is necessary to control your thirst for smoking and keeping yourself relaxed during the process of quitting smoking. Alternative therapies are used to take care of the withdrawal symptoms, and thus eventually you will quit smoking at the end. Meditation, Acupuncture, and Aromatherapy are the famous therapies used to solve withdrawal symptoms.

Counselling

Counselling is usually conducted to boost your will power and give you motivation on what you are trying to do, help you in finding the ways to quit smoking. Counselling might be one on one or group counselling based on your interest and comfort. Many Charitable like Christian rehab, Government, and Private Companies offer such counselling services on smoking, drug rehab and alcohol rehabilitation.Counselling does not stop the smoking habit abruptly but they work on the slowdown of chain smoking of electronic cigarette smoking, normal leave smoking and other such forms into mini e-cig and then cuts off the cravings for cig.

Hypnotherapy

The alternative successful way after smoking aids is hypnotherapy to help quitting smoke. As per all the reports, hypnotherapy is the effective way to help reduce the hunger for cigars. Hypnotherapy deals with eliminating the thoughts about the bad habit completely from the subconscious source of mind and thus you will eventually stop smoking.

Prescription Only Medicine

The medicines that you get from your doctor that helps quit smoking are called prescriptions. You will have to get appointments, make frequent visits, talk about your requirements to your doctor and collect the required medicines. Medicines like herbs are found to effective remedies in quitting fags.

Stop Smoking Aids

There are certain smoking aids like gum, nasal sprays, lozenges, inhalers and nicotine patches that would help you to lessen your hunger or thirst for nicotine. For instance: consider nicotine patch are made to release minute amount of medically approved nicotine on to your bloodstream and thus easing out the nicotine thirst, without having to intake the poisonous gases and harmful tars normally released from cigars. This is one of the simpler way to aid you quit smoking.

Willpower

The state of mind is often referred to as will power and it is always easy to say rather than doing it. By taking an oath to stop smoking you will be taking the first step in giving up smoking. It is necessary that you have faith on yourself and travel along the right path to stop smoking. Will power and Determination is necessary for you to reach the final stage of quit smoking.