Health Tips

Smoking is the largest cause of primary lung cancer, which is the leading cause of cancer related deaths. Therefore, smoking is the most preventable cause of death. It also contributes to illnesses including heart attack, emphysema, and stroke.

Side affects include nervousness, depression, and high cholesterol as it robs the body of good cholesterol.

It is never too late to quit. Studies show that when smokers quit, they add years to their life. The body immediately begins to repair itself with oxygenated blood.

Cold turkey is not always the best route for success. The sudden stop increases withdraw symptoms such as irritation and increased appetite. Learning by trial and error is one way to learn what works best for you.
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Continues from Tobacco Use and Diabetes part 1

When a blood clot develops that cuts off the blood supply to the vessels that feed the heart cells, we call that a “heart attack.” If the blood clot is in blood vessels feeding the brain, it is called a “stroke.” If it is in the lungs, it can be extremely dangerous and death can be immediate. Sometimes it is in a leg, foot, or toe. The farther from the heart, the smaller the blood vessels. It does not take much to cause a complete blockage of poor circulation in those tiny blood vessel where the openings have been narrowed by atherosclerosis and tobacco use.

Poor circulation is the leading cause of kidney failure, blindness, and non-traumatic amputation of toes, feet, and legs among people with diabetes. Diabetes is the Number One cause of each of these among adults under age 65 years in the United States. The risk of each of these is much, much higher if that diabetic also uses tobacco!
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Jumping out of an airplane without a parachute at 10,000 feet altitude would not make much sense, would it? Neither would jumping out of an airplane WITH a parachute and then refusing to pull the ripcord at the appropriate time. If you had been told to pull the ripcord at the count of 10, but you were enjoying the free fall so much that you decided to wait until the count of 11 or 12 or 15….the longer you wait, even if you eventually DID pull the ripcord, it still might be too late to do you much good by the time you hit the ground, right?

The same is true with people who use tobacco. Many people with diabetes still smoke or chew…but, I think it is because they really have never really understood the tremendous risk involved in continuing to smoke. The smoker may be enjoying the “free fall” so much that s/he plans to simply stop smoking/chewing “later.” But, will it be too little, too late?Img46.jpeg Is the pleasure of the “free fall” really worth the risk? Your decision needs to be based on facts….so read on……
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Every day, 4,000 children between the ages of twelve and seventeen try their first cigarette. This can be a deadly choice for an adolescent as tobacco use has been found to cause lung cancer as well as other health problems.

One third of all teens who start smoking will die as a result of their smoking habit. This, combined with the fact that almost three million teenagers are currently smoking, should send an alarming message to parents and the medical community.

Tobacco Facts
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Stop smoking medications are primarily available as nicotine replacement therapy (transdermal patch and gum) and the pill bupropion (Zyban). Unless there are good reasons to not use these medications, anyone quitting smoking should strongly consider using them to reduce craving intensity and nicotine withdrawal side effects. Always discuss your intentions with your doctor or pharmacist before taking any medication.

Isn’t using a nicotine patch or the gum a crutch? I am addicted to nicotine, why would I want to take it another form?
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Modern therapy for helping people to stop smoking has 2 arms: skills training and assisting people to select and use stop-smoking drugs.

Skills Training:

Will power is not enough! Many people need skill power to be able to change addictive habits such as smoking. These skills can be learned.

Quitting and more importantly staying quit often takes a lot of personal commitment, time and practice. Maintaining self-motivation, coping with stress, boredom and anxiety and learning new non-smoking behaviors are inherently frustrating and may lead to increased anxiety and even depression.
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A vaccine that stops you smoking because you are no longer getting a buzz from the nicotine looks like becoming a reality say researchers. The vaccine has been developed by the Swiss biotechnology company Cytos.

How does smoking vaccine work?
The vaccine is based on a bacteriopage, a virus that attacks bacteria. The vaccine uses part of a protein that attracts an immune response to nicotine. Antibodies bind to the nicotine and it then prevents it from getting through to the brain. Without the ‘high’ that you get from the nicotine the incentive to smoke diminishes. The vaccine should make it easier makes it easier to give up tobacco.
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Many people think that smoking is not as harmful as many organizations and anti-smoking campaigns are trying to convince. But the truth is obvious. Nowadays we have access to plenty of sources which can give us the appropriate information about the history of smoking or the culture of smoking. We have information about the whole process of producing cigarettes and stuff of this kind and this is not all. The public society – people, organizations, national medical institutes and so on, we meet in internet is a big argument about the problem we have today. In XXI century each person is facing up against difficulties connected to his own health and his need to take care for it.

Smoking is a habit bad or good but the central problem is that when we smoke we don’t give a chance to people near us to make their choice. We have made our choice. We feel good when we smoke and everything is alright. Do we ask ourselves about other opinion? Is it enough to know that we feel comfortable and this is all we need to bear in mind?

Smoking is a problem of freedom. We are free to do whatever we desire no matter what it pays to. Nowadays we often disregard other people’s will in order to impose ours. We don’t feel necessity to look forward and pay attention to child’s feelings and needs for example.

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There are plenty of reasons why we should smoke but a lot more why we shouldn’t. If smoking makes us more confident, more relax and concentrated it is worthy. Is it worthy enough if this little piece of pleasure damages our health unmendably? Many scientists say that smoking is the single most preventable cause of death and disease. If this is true, it cannot be so hard to stop smoking.

The most important though we must put into consideration is “Do I need to smoke in order to feel better?”, “Is it so impossible for me to stop this habit? Every single smoker knows that ingredients in each cigarette we can buy and smoke contain so much poison that harms every part of our bodies. Smoking not only can kill us faster than time but it can make us regret for our foolishness.

Recent examinations found out that cigarettes cause more deaths than cocaine, auto accidents, AIDS, alcohol, heroin, fire, suicide and homicide combined. This is not a lie. This is a conclusion. What can we do to stop the man made killer? Is there a power which can stop us take measures? We are dyeing from the moment we were born. Humans are not immortal. Is this truth enough to convince us that we do not need to take care about our longevity?
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