Passive Smoking............Dont kill others

Passive smoking is the involuntary inhalation of smoke from tobacco products. It occurs when tobacco smoke permeates any environment, causing its inhalation by all people within that environment. Such smoke is called secondhand smoke (SHS) or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Scientific evidence shows that exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes death, disease and disability.

The risks associated with passive smoking are one of the main reasons for smoking bans in workplaces and indoor public places, including restaurants, bars and night clubs.

Quit Smoking & Re-Discover life

The early and long-term benefits of quitting

Everyone knows that smoking is bad for their health. But did you know that cigarette smoke
contains about 4000 chemicals, some of which are known to cause cancer?6 The good news is that quitting can reverse the effects of smoking, starting almost right away.

After quitting

• 20 minutes: Heart rate begins to normalize
• 12 hours: Carbon monoxide levels drop to normal
• 2 weeks to 3 months: Circulation can improve; lungs can work better
• 1 to 9 months: Shortness of breath and coughing can decrease; lungs can increase ability to handle mucus and reduce risk of infection
• 1 year: Risk of heart disease falls to half that for someone who continues smoking
• 5 years: Risk of stroke is sharply decreased
• 10 years: Risk of lung cancer falls to half that for someone who continues to smoke
• 15 years: Risk of heart disease becomes the same as for someone who has never

Believing you can quit

It is proven that smokers who want to quit and are motivated to quit have the greatest chance of success..............

Are you a motivated quitter?

• Do you want to quit smoking?
• Have you tried to quit before?
• Do you believe you can quit?
• Do you think about the risks of smoking?
• Do you think that quitting will make you
feel better?
• Do you realize that quitting will be hard,
yet you still want to try?

IT’S TIME TO GET HELP !!

• You know quitting smoking will be hard. Your doctor is the person who can offer real help
• Today, there are many support groups, hotlines,and Web-sites to help you quit
— Prescription medicines have been developed to make quitting easier and increase your odds of success
• Ask your doctor what prescription medicines are now available and whether one of them might be right for you.......

Smoking Worse Than Exhaust for Air Pollution

Three cigarettes can cause more air pollution than a diesel car's exhaust, according to an Italian study.

The study compared levels of air pollution particles produced by cigarettes with those coming from a late-model "eco-diesel" engine. The research team was led by Giovanni Invernizzi of the Tobacco Control Unit of Italy's National Cancer Institute.

Environmental tobacco smoke is a contributor of air pollution particles. These fine particles are a risk factor for chronic lung disease which can be debilitating and sometimes fatal. They can lead to conditions such as asthma, bronchitis, and emphysema, and are also a risk for lung cancer, write the researchers.

The test was conducted in the small, northern Italian mountain town of Chiavenna, which has unusually low outdoor levels of air pollution.

The experiment was conducted in a closed, private garage with six small vents, which were kept open during the experiment in accordance with Italian law.

The car they tested was a 2002 turbo diesel Ford Mondeo that met European gas exhaust standards. Low-sulfur fuel was also used.

The cigarettes were "MS" filter cigarettes produced by Italian State Monopoly. Each contained 1 milligram of nicotine and 11.2 milligrams of tar.

The researchers started the Mondeo and then let its engine idle for 30 minutes. After airing out the garage for four hours, the scientists lit three cigarettes -- one after another -- and let them smolder for a total of 30 minutes.

They measured air pollution levels every two minutes during the tests. They also measured pollution particle matter for an additional 90 minutes after the engine was turned off and the cigarettes had burned out. The car's exhaust and cigarettes were placed in the same position.

Researchers focused on fine particulate matter air pollution -- microscopic particles in the air that measure less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, which is about the size of cigarette smoke particles.

The cigarettes produced 10 times as much particulate matter as the auto, comparing the first hour after starting the engine with the first hour after lighting the cigarettes.

"Since we utilized a room with a volume similar to that encountered in many offices and homes, the present data give cause for concern," write the researchers. "Environmental tobacco smoke is a major source of particulate matter pollution."

Newer vehicles have improved emission rates. "It has been estimated that older gasoline vehicles and light-duty diesel emission rates are on average 100 times higher than those of newer vehicles," write the researchers. Low-sulfur fuel also helps reduce particulate matter.

While smoking is restricted for health reasons in many countries, it's not always associated with air pollution.

"Even health personnel are often unaware of such risks," write the researchers, who suggest using their findings in antismoking campaigns. The research is published in the journal Tobacco Control.

Primary risks of Smoking

Regular smokers are estimated to live to 2.5 to 10 years less than nonsmokers.About one-half of male smokers will die of illness due to smoking.

Tobacco related illnesses kill approximately 438,000 USA citizens per year,about 1,205 per day, making it the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. The World Health Organization has stated that tobacco is set to kill a billion people this century..

The main health risks in tobacco pertain to diseases of the cardiovascular system, in particular smoking being a major risk factor for a myocardial infarction (heart attack), diseases of the respiratory tract such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and emphysema, and cancer, particularly lung cancer and cancers of the larynx and mouth. It also increases the risk of developing pancreatic cancer by 75%. Prior to World War I, lung cancer was considered to be a rare disease, which most physicians would never see during their career. With the postwar rise in popularity of cigarette smoking came a virtual epidemic of lung cancer.

Currently, among people who have ever smoked any kind of tobacco, almost one in ten will develop lung cancer.One in six men who continue to smoke tobacco will develop lung cancer. This compares to only one case of lung cancer in seventy-five lifelong non-smokers.

Incidence of impotence is approximately 85 percent higher in male smokers compared to non-smokers,and it is a key cause of erectile dysfunction (ED).Smoking causes impotence because it promotes arterial narrowing.

A person's increased risk of contracting disease is directly proportional to the length of time that a person continues to smoke as well as the amount smoked. However, if someone stops smoking, then these chances gradually decrease as the damage to their body is repaired.

Tobacco and health

The effects of tobacco on health are significant, depending on the way the tobacco is used (smoked, snuffed or chewed) and the amount. Major health effects of smoking, the most common use of tobacco, include an increased risk in lung cancer and cardiovascular disease. The World Health Organization estimated in 2002 that in developed countries, 26% of male deaths and 9% of female deaths were attributable to smoking. Similarly, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes tobacco use as "the single most important preventable risk to human health in developed countries and an important cause of premature death worldwide."

Nicotine replacement therapy

Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is the use of various forms of nicotine delivery methods intended to replace nicotine obtained from smoking or other tobacco usage. These products are intended for use in smoking cessation efforts to help deal with withdrawal symptoms and cravings caused by the loss of nicotine from cigarettes. Several forms of NRT have been marketed, including the nicotine patch, inhaler, nasal spray, gum, sublingual tablet, and lozenge. NRT is thought to be useful and beneficial for tobacco users who want to quit their addiction and is for most people perfectly safe. Cigarettes on the other hand cause the early deaths of about 5 million people each year[1]. These people are not killed by the nicotine in the cigarette, but by other constituents of tobacco smoke such as Carbon Monoxide and tars. It is the nicotine that keeps the smoker addicted. Cigarettes can be viewed as a "dirty" and dangerous method of delivering nicotine, while NRT is a "clean" and safe method.

NRT delivers nicotine to the smoker's brain in a much slower way than cigarettes do. It helps to damp down the urges to smoke that most smokers have in the early days and weeks after quitting, rather than remove them totally. It gives the smoker the chance to break smoking cues in their daily lives, and might provide a more comfortable exit from the smoking habit. NRT however is best used with some form of support, ideally from someone who knows something about smoking cessation.

In 2005 the Committee on the Safety of Medicines recommended that NRT be given to pregnant smokers and also to adolescent smokers.

A small number of people who use NRT, especially nasal Spray and nicotine Gum, will go on to use it on a longer term basis. These are usually highly nicotine dependent smokers who would not have been able to quit without the help of such medication. There is currently no evidence that such long term usage is harmful to health, especially when compared to smoking.

Findings from a recent Cochrane review of controlled trials testing NRT products (Stead et al 2008) indicated that smokers using NRT were 1.5 to 2 times more likely to be abstinent from smoking at followup than those in the placebo or control treatment condition.

Physiological effects of Smoking

Upon smoking cessation, the body begins to rid itself of naturally foreign substances introduced to the body through smoking. These include substances in the blood such as nicotine and carbon monoxide, and also accumulated particulate matter and tar from the lungs. As a consequence, though the smoker may begin coughing more, cardiovascular efficiency increases.

Many of the effects of smoking cessation can be seen as landmarks, often tried by smoking cessation services, by which a smoker can encourage his or herself to keep going. Some are of a certain nature, such as those of nicotine clearing the bloodstream completely in 48 to 72 hours, and cotinine (a metabolite of nicotine) clearing the bloodstream within 10 to 14 days. Other effects, such as improved circulation, are more subjective in nature, and as a result less definite timescales are often cited. . . . . . . . .