How quitters can be winners in smoking

How quitters can be winners on smoking

Smokers are two to four times more likely to develop heart disease than nonsmokers.

That said, quitting can start to turn things around almost instantly. "It's really quite striking how rapidly you get benefits," says Russell Luepker, a cardiologist at the University of Minnesota and an expert on smoking cessation.

Within just two or three weeks, a former smoker's circulation improves. After just a year, the extra risk to his heart drops by half.

Smokers get it. Forty percent try to quit every year.
While the odds for success are long - less than 3 percent of quitters "stay quit" for a year, to use the voguish term for kicking the habit - research shows that several approaches can vastly improve the odds.

Cold, hard cash. Philadelphia researcher Kevin Volpp, director of the Center for Health Incentives at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Wharton School, has gotten good results paying people to quit.

Last year, Volpp and his team reported a 9.4 percent long-term quit rate in a study of more than 800 General Electric Co. employees who were offered $750 each to stop smoking.
To help participants think long-term, "most of the money was held back," Volpp says.

The researchers awarded $100 to GE workers who complete a smoking-cessation program, a further $250 to those who stayed quit for six months, and $400 more to those who succeeded for at least nine months.

Volpp says he hasn't had any nibbles from local employers or health plans, but says GE has considered offering the program companywide.

Hand-holding and drugs. Smokers who get counseling and use smoking-cessation medication have better odds of quitting than those who try counseling or medicine alone, Luepker says.

An impressive 30 percent of former smokers who do both are able to quit for the long term.
In counseling, learning specific problem-solving skills, such as how to outlast a craving, has been shown to help quitters succeed. Getting help from a telephone "quit line" doubles the odds that they will.

Medicine alone has a long-term success rate of about 23 percent, according to a 2008 report from the surgeon general, which also found that some drugs are better in combination with other medications than alone.

Using nicotine patches along with either nicotine gum, nicotine nasal spray, or a nicotine inhaler is one combo that the report endorses.

Using nicotine patches plus the medicine buproprion SR (Zyban) is another.

On its own, the medicine varenicline (Chantix) has a success rate above 30 percent.
Both Zyban and Chantix carry black-box warnings from the FDA about a potential risk for "serious mental health events." The agency cautions patients and their doctors to watch for signs of suicidal thoughts, depression, hostility or other changes in behavior.

Emerging apps for that. A free iPhone app called My Quitline, developed by a consortium of health groups, connects directly to the National Cancer Institute's quit line, with live help in English and Spanish. (Search under "My Quitline" from an iPhone to find it.)

More ambitiously, researchers in the Game Research Lab at Columbia University Teachers College have begun to develop an app that aims to help smokers quit by giving them a near-smoking experience with their iPhones.

By breathing into the phone's microphone, they'll be able to control a video game called Lit, which can be played in either "rush" or "relax" mode.

Playing mimics the physiological effects that smokers get from cigarettes, including the relaxation response from breathing deeply.

"After you've played it, you don't need a cigarette so badly," claims researcher Jessica Hammer.
Beyond that, she says, "the game keeps your mind occupied" until a craving can pass. The Columbia group has already built some prototypes and hopes to go into large-scale testing by early next year.

Reasons to quit smoking: Secondhand Smoke

Secondhand Smoke

What is secondhand smoke?
Secondhand smoke is also known as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) or passive smoke. It is a mixture of 2 forms of smoke that come from burning tobacco: sidestream smoke (smoke that comes from the end of a lighted cigarette, pipe, or cigar) and mainstream smoke (smoke that is exhaled by a smoker).

When non-smokers are exposed to secondhand smoke it is called involuntary smoking or passive smoking. Non-smokers who breathe in secondhand smoke take in nicotine and other toxic chemicals just like smokers do.

The more secondhand smoke you are exposed to, the higher the level of these harmful chemicals in your body.

Why is secondhand smoke a problem?
Secondhand smoke causes cancer

Secondhand smoke is classified as a "known human carcinogen" (cancer-causing agent) by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. National Toxicology Program, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization.

Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemical compounds. More than 60 of these are known or suspected to cause cancer.

Secondhand smoke causes other kinds of diseases and deaths

Secondhand smoke can cause harm in many ways. In the United States alone, each year it is responsible for:
an estimated 46,000 deaths from heart disease in non-smokers who live with smokers
about 3,400 lung cancer deaths in non-smoking adults

other breathing problems in non-smokers, including coughing, mucus, chest discomfort, and reduced lung function

150,000 to 300,000 lung infections (such as pneumonia and bronchitis) in children younger than 18 months of age, which result in 7,500 to 15,000 hospitalizations annually
increases in the number and severity of asthma attacks in about 200,000 to 1 million children who have asthma

more than 750,000 middle ear infections in children

Pregnant women exposed to secondhand smoke are also at increased risk of having low birth- weight babies.

Secondhand smoke may be linked to breast cancer
An issue that is still being studied is whether secondhand smoke increases the risk of breast cancer.

Both mainstream and secondhand smoke contain about 20 chemicals that, in high concentrations, cause breast cancer in rodents. And we know that in humans, chemicals from tobacco smoke reach breast tissue and are found in breast milk.

But a link between secondhand smoke and breast cancer risk in human studies is still being debated. This is partly because breast cancer risk has not been shown to be increased in active smokers.

One possible explanation for this is that tobacco smoke may have different effects on breast cancer risk in smokers and in those who are exposed to secondhand smoke.


A report from the California Environmental Protection Agency in 2005 concluded that the evidence regarding secondhand smoke and breast cancer is "consistent with a causal association" in younger women. This means that the secondhand smoke acts as if it could be a cause of breast cancer in these women.

The 2006 U.S. Surgeon General's report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke, found that there is "suggestive but not sufficient" evidence of a link at this point.

In any case, women should be told that this possible link to breast cancer is yet another reason to avoid being around secondhand smoke.
Secondhand smoke kills children and adults who don't smoke, and makes others sick (Surgeon General's report)


The 2006 U.S. Surgeon General's report reached some important conclusions:
Secondhand smoke causes premature death and disease in children and in adults who do not smoke.


Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma.

Smoking by parents causes breathing (respiratory) symptoms and slows lung growth in their children.

Secondhand smoke immediately affects the heart and blood circulation in a harmful way. Over a longer time it also causes heart disease and lung cancer.


The scientific evidence shows that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
Many millions of Americans, both children and adults, are still exposed to secondhand smoke in their homes and workplaces despite a great deal of progress in tobacco control.


The only way to fully protect non-smokers from exposure to secondhand smoke indoors is to prevent all smoking in that indoor space or building. Separating smokers from non-smokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating buildings cannot keep non-smokers from being exposed to secondhand smoke.

Where is secondhand smoke a problem?
You should be especially concerned about exposure to secondhand smoke in these 4 places:

At work
The workplace is a major source of secondhand smoke exposure for adults. Secondhand smoke meets the standard to be classified as a potential cancer-causing agent by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the federal agency responsible for health and safety regulations in the workplace.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), another federal agency, also recommends that secondhand smoke be considered a possible carcinogen in the workplace. Because there are no known safe levels, they recommend that exposures to secondhand smoke be reduced to the lowest possible levels.

Secondhand smoke in the workplace has been linked to an increased risk for heart disease and lung cancer among adult non-smokers.

The Surgeon General has said that smoke-free workplace policies are the only way to do away with secondhand smoke exposure at work. Separating smokers from non-smokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating the building cannot prevent exposure if people still smoke inside the building. An extra bonus other than protecting non-smokers is that workplace smoking restrictions may also encourage smokers to quit.


In public places
Everyone can be exposed to secondhand smoke in public places, such as restaurants, shopping centers, public transportation, schools, and daycare centers. Some businesses seem to be afraid to ban smoking, but there is no proof that going smoke-free is bad for business. Public places where children go are a special area of concern.


At home
Making your home smoke-free may be one of the most important things you can do for the health of your family. Any family member can develop health problems related to secondhand smoke.


Children are especially sensitive to secondhand smoke. Asthma, lung infections, and ear infections are more common in children who are around smokers. Some of these problems can be serious and even life-threatening.

Others may seem like small problems, but they add up quickly: think of the expenses, doctor visits, medicines, lost school time, and often lost work time for the parent who must take the child to the doctor. In the United States, 21 million, or 35% of children live in homes where residents or visitors smoke in the home on a regular basis. About 50% to 75% of children in the U.S. have detectable levels of cotinine, the breakdown product of nicotine, in their blood.


Think about it: we spend more time at home than anywhere else. A smoke-free home protects your family, your guests, and even your pets.

In the car
Americans spend a great deal of time in cars, and if someone smokes there, hazardous levels of smoke can build up quickly. Again, this can be especially harmful to children. In response to this fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a special program to encourage people to make their cars, as well as their homes, smoke-free. And some states have laws that ban smoking in the car if carrying passengers under the age of 17.


What about smoking odors?
There is no research in the medical literature about the cancer-causing effects of cigarette odors. Research does show that secondhand tobacco smoke can get into hair, clothing, and other surfaces. Some researchers call this "thirdhand" smoke.

This refers to the toxic particles that are left in the air after you can no longer see the smoke. Over time, they settle on surfaces and can be measured long after the person is done smoking. Though unknown, the cancer-causing effects would likely be very small compared with direct exposure to secondhand smoke, such as living in a house with a smoker. But this is an active area of tobacco research.

What can be done about secondhand smoke?
Local, state, and federal authorities can enact public policies to protect people from secondhand smoke and protect children from tobacco-caused diseases and addiction. Because there are no safe levels of secondhand smoke, it is important that any such policies be as strong as possible, and that they do not prevent action at other levels of government.


Many U.S. local and state governments, and even federal governments in some other countries, have decided that protecting the health of employees and others in public places is of the utmost importance. Many have passed clean indoor air laws in recent years. Although the laws vary from place to place, they are becoming more common. Detailed information on smoking restrictions in each state is available from the American Lung Association at http://slati.lungusa.org.


To learn how you can become involved in helping to promote laws to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke, you can visit the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network on the Web at www.acscan.org and see what's happening across the country. The Web site can also take you to your state's page so you can find out what is going on there.

Reasons to quit smoking - Health benefits

Reasons to Quit Smoking

The moment you quit smoking you begin to lower your risk of getting a tobacco-related illness and begin to improve your overall health. But if you need more reasons, we have them!


When Smokers Quit—The Health Benefits Over Time

20 minutes after quitting: Your heart rate and blood pressure drops.(Effect of Smoking on Arterial Stiffness and Pulse Pressure Amplification, Mahmud, A, Feely, J. 2003. Hypertension:41:183.)

12 hours after quitting: The carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal.(US Surgeon General's Report, 1988, p. 202)

2 weeks to 3 months after quitting: Your circulation improves and your lung function increases.(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, pp.193, 194,196, 285, 323)


1 to 9 months after quitting: Coughing and shortness of breath decrease; cilia (tiny hair-like structures that move mucus out of the lungs) regain normal function in the lungs, increasing the ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs, and reduce the risk of infection.(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, pp. 285-287, 304)

1 year after quitting: The excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker's.(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, p. vi)


5 years after quitting: Your stroke risk is reduced to that of a nonsmoker 5 to 15 years after quitting.(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, p. vi)


10 years after quitting: The lung cancer death rate is about half that of a continuing smoker's. The risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, cervix, and pancreas decrease.(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, pp. vi, 131, 148, 152, 155, 164,166)


15 years after quitting: The risk of coronary heart disease is that of a non-smoker's.(US Surgeon General's Report, 1990, p. vi)

How to quit smoking IMMEDIATELY!

Want to Kick the Habit , how?

Yes, quitting is tough, but it's worth the effort.

The good news is that you don't have to do it alone.