SEVERAL studies have shown that smoking kills but people still keep on doing the vice.
Six million people around the world die every year from tobacco-related diseases, according to the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO).
If current trends continue, the WHO estimated that the toll will rise to 10 million by 2030—one death every three seconds. Some people contend that if the Philippines wants to control its population, it doesn’t need family planning anymore. All it needs to do is to allow more Filipinos to smoke.
From 1950 to 2000 tobacco killed more than 60 million people in developed countries alone—more than those who died in World War II.
Why so many deaths, you may wonder. “Tobacco is a known or probable cause of some 25 different diseases,” the UN health agency reminded. Among the major diseases tobacco bring to people who smoke are lung cancer, bronchitis and emphysema.
Tobacco consumption has been explicitly linked to high incidence and gravity of cardiac disease.
Women who smoke, beware—especially if you are pregnant. “Maternal smoking is associated with a higher risk of miscarriage, lower birthweight of babies and inhibited child development,” the WHO said.
You haven’t heard anything yet. “Parental smoking,” the WHO said, “is also a factor in sudden infant death syndrome and is associated with higher rates of respiratory illnesses, including bronchitis, colds and pneumonia in children.
“Tobacco is the only legal drug that kills many of its users when used exactly as intended by manufacturers,” the WHO deploreed.
If you haven’t started smoking yet, don’t try to try smoking. The reason: tobacco products are highly addictive. “Because tobacco products are carefully designed to undermine efforts to quit using them, quitting is not simply a matter of choice for the majority of tobacco users. Instead, it involves a struggle to overcome an addiction,” the WHO said.
Tobacco use typically is woven into everyday life, and can be physiologically, psychologically and socially reinforcing. “Many factors combine with tobacco’s addictive capacity to make quitting difficult, including media depictions and cultural and societal acceptance of tobacco use,” the WHO said.
Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former WHO director general, understands the situation well. “Giving up smoking is not easy,” she said. “We know that nicotine is powerfully addictive, and all of us know people who have tried to give up smoking, only to find themselves drawn back to it a few months later.”
It doesn’t mean, however, that you cannot quit smoking. It takes more than courage and will. “Quitting tobacco at any point in life provides both immediate benefits and substantial long-term benefits to health,” the WHO reminded. “No amount of tobacco use is safe.
“Abstinence from tobacco products and freedom from exposure to secondhand smoke are necessary for maximizing health and minimizing risk,” the WHO said. “Effective treatment for tobacco dependence can significantly improve overall public health within only a few years.”
These are the beneficial health changes that take place if and when you quit smoking: within 20 minutes, your heart rate and blood pressure drop; 12 hours, the carbon-monoxide level in your blood drops to normal; two to 12 weeks, your circulation improves and your lung function increases; and one to nine months, coughing and shortness of breath decrease.
One year after, your risk of coronary heart disease is about half that of a smoker’s; five years, your stroke risk is reduced to that of a nonsmoker five to 15 years after quitting; 10 years, your risk of lung cancer falls to about half that of a smoker and your risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, cervix, and pancreas decreases; and 15 years, the risk of coronary heart disease is that of a nonsmoker’s.
There is no such thing as “too late to quit smoking.” the WHO said that people of all ages who have already developed smoking-related health problems can still benefit from quitting.
Here are the benefits in comparison with those who continued: at about 30: gain almost 10 years of life expectancy; at about 40: gain nine years of life expectancy; at about 50: gain six years of life expectancy; and at about 60: gain three years of life expectancy.
While quitting smoking reduces death risk, smokers who do so may gain weight and they also are at risk of having diabetes, reported the state-run Philippine News Agency (PNA).
The PNA report quoted researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Harvard University who found that “those whose weight increased more than 15 kilograms after quitting smoking had a higher risk of type 2 diabetes than smokers.”
“The risk peaked five to seven years after quitting and then gradually decreased,” it added. “Those who did not gain weight after quitting did not experience an increase in the risk of diabetes.”
But the good news is: “Regardless of weight change, cardiovascular mortality and all-cause mortality of former smokers declined rapidly after they gave up smoking, and remained at about 70 percent that of smokers’ mortality.”
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