Smoking Facts, How And Why To Quit

Source: Nutri.com

Cigarette, cigar, and pipe-smoking are so debilitating that the immediate cessation of the habit is
always
the first step of any program to improve one's health - even more important than vitamins, diet,
or exercise.

International studies of millions of people by government, industry, universities,

and private research institutions have determined that smoking can cause:

1. Stained teeth, fingers, and hair

2. Increased frequency of colds, particularly chest colds and bronchitis
3. Asthma
4. Neuralgia
5. Gastrointestinal difficulties, constipation, diarrhea, and colitis
6. Headaches
7. Nausea
8. Convulsions
9. Leukoflakia (smoker's patch)
10. Insomnia
11. Heart murmur
12. Buerger's disease (inflammation of blood vessel
linings)
13. Shortness of breath
14. Arthritis
15. Smoker's hack
16. Nervousness
17. Wrinkles and premature aging
18. Tension
19. Gastric, duodenal, and peptic ulcers
20. Lung cancer
21. Cancer of the lip, tongue, pharynx, larynx, and bladder
22.Emphysema
23.High blood pressure
24. Heart disease
25. Artherosclerosis & arteriosclerosis (thickening and loss of elasticity of the blood vessels with
lessened blood flow)
26. Inflammation of the sinus passages
27. Tobacco angina (nicotine angina pectoris)
28. Pneumonia
29. Influenza
30. Pulmonary tuberculosis
31. Tobacco amblyopia
32. impared hearing
33. Decreased sexual activity
34. Mental depression

Blood flow to the extremities is decreased (cold hands and feet).One puff lowers the temperature
in the fingertips 1ºF to 3ºF in 3 minutes.

Nicotine affects the nerve-muscle junctions, causing tremors and shaking. Nicotine causes
narrowing and constriction of the arteries, adding to the heart's load. Nicotine, through its ability
to stimulate, causes excitement and anxiety. But the effect wears off, often a period of depression
follows, whereupon another cigarette is taken. Nicotine, an insecticide, makes the blood more
viscous and decreases the available oxygen. It also adversely affects the breathing, sweating,
intestinal, and heart actions of our autonomic nervous system, probably due to hindering the
blood flow to the nerve centers in the brain.

Two to four cigarettes in a row increase blood fats 200 to 400%. The average smoker (30
cigerettes per day) has 4 to 6 times the chance of having heart disease if he's in the 45-54 year
age group.

If the mother smoked during pregnancy, her baby will average 6 ounces less and its pulse will be
30% faster than a non-smoker's baby, and there'll be withdrawal symptoms in the baby after
birth. Premature birth has been related to smoking by the mother. There is a direct link between
parents' smoking and children's respiratory disease.

Smoking causes widespread permanent destruction of the tiny air sacs (alveoli) and narrowing of
small blood vessels in the lungs, decreasing the oxygen supply, requiring a higher blood
pressure, thus causing extensive circulatory problems and premature heart attacks. Smokers have
difficulty running and exercising.

The cilia are tiny, delicate, hairlike coverings on the thin membrane of the surface of the lungs
and trachea that, by means of their whipping, beating action, produce an upward current of
foreign material and mucus from the lungs which is then swallowed or expectorated. This is the
way the body cleans the lungs. This delicate lung-cleaning mechanism, in a cigarette smoker, at
first paralyzes, then deteriorates, and is eventually made inoperative, through the complete
destruction of the cilia. The smoker then must resort to coughing as a lung-cleaning method. This
isn't efficient, and more than a cupful of tars will have accumulated in his lungs by the time of
his premature death.

Air pollution (auto exhausts, industry wastes, etc.) increases the lung cancer rate of the smoker,
but not of the non-smoker. Apparently, the lung-cleaning cilia are alive and working for the non-
smoker.

The time to recover from any specific ill, whether caused by smoking or not, is much longer for
the smoker. Often, a non-smoker will survive a sickness from which he would have died had he
smoked.
The non-smoker has no need to spend money to buy cigarettes, matches, lighters, holders,
ashtrays, or to spend a dime a mile for that special trip to the store. Just the cigarettes alone
amount to an average of $250 per year, after taxes - wasted. Add another $250 if the spouse
smokes. This is hard-earned, after-tax, money of yours, used to pay for the above smoking
paraphernalia - plus tax! (Please note: these are 1971 figures.)

By dying earlier, the smoker will lose many tens of thousands of dollars in social security and
other benefits which will naturally end up in the pockets of the non-smoker. The cigarette tax is
more money from the smoker to the non-smoker.

The smoker is sick more often, explaining why he misses an average of 7½ work days per year,
usually with a loss of pay, while the non-smoker will miss only 4½ days.

The smoker must spend valuable time looking for ashtrays, cigarettes, matches, retail stores,
vending machines, or change for these machines. He experiences displeasure if they aren't
immediately at hand. Just the process of deciding on "which brand" wastes vast amounts of
mental, physical, and financial resources.

The overall bad health of the smoker results, on average, in a decrease of 8.3 years in his life
expectancy, or about 12 to 14 minutes per cigarette. Just in lost social security income alone, this
amounts to about a 5¢ a cigarette. The actual cost of each cigarette when you include extra
medical expenses, lost pay, etc., is of the order of 25¢ per cigarette (1971 figures).

Just the extra medical expenses alone can be expected to eventually use up all of a smoker's
hard-earned savings, already depleted by the high cost of smoking. By the time non-smokers get
sick, Medicare will foot their medical bills.

The smoker's body requires more sleep every night. This extra sleep must come from his spare
time. Besides needing more sleep, smokers don't sleep as well.

Smoking destroys vitamins, particularly vitamin C and the B's. If you smoke, it can be critical to
supplement yourself with these vitamins.