Tips for Quitting Tobacco

Tips for Quitting Tobacco

Getting Ready to Quit

• Set a date for quitting. If possible, have a friend quit smoking with you.

• Notice when and why you smoke. Try to find the things in your daily life that you often do while smoking (such as drinking your morning cup of coffee or driving a car).

• Change your smoking routines. Keep your cigarettes in a different place. Smoke with your other hand. Don't do anything else when smoking. /li>
• Smoke only in certain places, such as outdoors.

• When you want a cigarette, wait a few minutes. Try to think of something to do instead of smoking.

• Buy one pack of cigarettes at a time. Switch to a brand of cigarettes you don't like.


On the Day You Quit

• Get rid of all your cigarettes. Put away your ashtrays.

• Change your morning routine. When you eat breakfast, don't sit in the same place at the kitchen table. Stay busy.

• When you get the urge to smoke, do something else instead.

• Carry other things to put in your mouth, such as gum, hard candy or a toothpick.

• Reward yourself at the end of the day for not smoking. See a movie or go out and enjoy your favorite meal.

Keep Up the Good Work

• Don't worry if you are sleepier or more short-tempered than usual; these feelings will pass.

• Try to exercise. Take walks or ride a bike.

• Consider the positive things about quitting. A positive attitude will help you through the tough times.

• When you feel tense, try to keep busy.

• Eat regular meals. Feeling hungry is sometimes mistaken for the desire to smoke.

• Start a money jar with the money you save by not buying cigarettes.

• Let others know that you have quit smoking.. Most people will support you.

• If you slip and smoke, don't be discouraged. Many former smokers tried to stop several times before they finally succeeded. Quit again.

• If you need more help, see your doctor.

Dangers of Tobacco

Dangers of Tobacco

The following is a small list of dangers associated with tobacco !

Regardless of the tobacco product used, there is an increased risk of cancer, strokes and heart disease. Tobacco smoke that is inhaled causes lung cancer, sinus disease and chronic obstructive lung disease. Many pipe smokers state that they do not inhale, but research shows that they have a significant increase in risk of lung, larynx, throat, esophagus, pancreas, and colon-rectal cancers along with an increased risk of coronary artery disease, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and strokes.

Premature Wrinkling of Skin Tobacco use has been associated with premature aging and skin wrinkling. Before undergoing cosmetic surgery for wrinkles one should suspend tobacco use.

Nyunova, et al. (2009) found that smoking accelerates aging by damaging the same protein which is damaged in Werner's syndrome, a genetic disorder which causes premature aging.

Fires

If careless, cigarettes can cause life threatening fires. To the right is a picture of a patient who was smoking a cigarette while using home oxygen to treat his chronic obstructive lung disease. A fire and explosions ignited with extensive burns to the face and inside of the nose. A video of the patient's nasal endoscopy can be viewed below.

Cancer

Over 90% of laryngeal cancers are caused by smoking.

Lung Cancer: Smoking causes 87% of all lung cancer cases.

Oral and Esophageal Cancer: The picture is from a 77 year old patient who had a 30 pack year history of smoking. He quite smoking 26 years ago. The picture shows a large pyriform sinus cancer. The pyriform sinus is located in the hypopharyngeal between the throat and the esophagus. The cancer can be seen eating into the patient's voice box.

Stomach Cancer: It has been estimated that 14 to 28% of stomach cancer deaths are caused by smoking.

Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, and Stroke. Nicotine, the major drug in tobacco constricts blood vessels, increasing blood pressure and the work of the heart. Constricting blood vessels also decreases blood flow to the body's tissues, resulting in decreased healing. These effects are exacerbated by diseases such as diabetes.

Chronic Hoarseness and Laryngeal Polyps Chronic smokers often develop a persistent hoarse voice with edema of the larynx and formation of vocal cord polyps. Shown in the pictures below from left to right is a normal larynx, a larynx with massive vocal cord polyps (in a heavy smoker) and the same larynx after the polyps have been surgically removed.

Poor Sex Life: Smoking is a major factor in impotence. It is also a turnoff to the opposite sex. The following is a study taken in our local high-school.

Feldman A.H. et. al (Preventative Medicine 30(4):328-38, 2000) found that Cigarette smoking almost doubled the chances of developing moderate or complete erectile dysfunction. Exposure to passive smoke also significantly increased the incidence of erectile dysfunction.

Question: Do You Want Your Boy or Girl friend to Use Tobacco Products?
A total of 23 current tobacco users and 23 non-tobacco users were surveyed. No respondent answered "YES". There was no significant difference between tobacco users and non-users.

Smoke Yes 0 No 33 Don't Care 13
Chew Yes 0 No 40 Don't Care 5

Smoking and Pregnancy: Smoking has been implicated in the risk of diabetes, obesity and mental retardation in the newborn. An increase incidence of cleft lip and palate has also been observed in maternal smokers. Maternal smoking while pregnant also causes more miscarriages and creates low-birth weight babies.

In the mother smoking during pregnancy can cause an increase chance of premature rupture of the membranes, abruptio placentae and placenta previa. In the child, maternal smoking during pregnancy increases the chances of premature delivery, still birth and sudden infant death syndrome. Smoking during pregnancy is associated with an increase in neonatal admissions to the ICU and a corresponding increase in neonatal health care costs.

In Kentucky, smoking mothers had a 66% higher chance of having a low-birth weight infant and twice the chance of having their child die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Emphysema: This is a progressive wasting of the lungs which is most commonly caused by chronic smoking. Patient's afflicted with emphysema experience a slow loss of breath. If not caught early, many patients must use home oxygen and experience a slow suffocating death.

Smokers have more training injuries. Training injuries are the number one reason marine cadets do not make the core. These injuries include: Tendonitis, stress fractures, frostbite and more foot blisters. Nicotine is a vasoconstrictor and decreases blood flow to tissues increasing their susceptibility to injury and decreases their ability to heal. Ref: USMC National Health Naval Research Center - San Diego, CA.

Smokers have less stamina than non-smokers. They can not run as fast, have les muscular endurance and there immune system is not as strong. Smokers get sicker more often especially with bronchitis and take longer to recover. Non-smokers are steadier and have better night vision. Smoking is not allowed in USMC boot camp.

Gum, Dental and Mouth Disease To the right is a picture of a hairy tongue caused by poor mouth hygiene and smoking.

Ear Infections and URI's

Smoker's Rhinitis: Tobacco smoke contains hundreds of chemicals and at least forty of which have been implicated in cancer. Smoking irritates the lining of the nose, increasing nasal secretions and swelling. The increase in secretions are caused by goblet cell hyperplasia. The cilia (microscopic hair like structures which transport fluids) in the nose has its function inhibited and the nose becomes less able to cleanse itself and more susceptible to allergens. Thus if you smoke, treatments for allergy are less likely to be effective because the nose has a reduced ability to clean itself of the allergic particles that are inhaled. Smoking and secondhand smoke is associated with significant nasal and sinus disease and symptoms.

Shown to the left, is a picture of a dry pale inside of a nose in a 100 pack/year patient with smoker's rhinitis. In my (Dr. Kevin Kavanagh's) experience, decongestants, antihistamines and nasal steroids are of little help. In my practice, I have not had a single allergic patient who smokes improve with allergy shots. Some doctors will not even allergy test patients that smoke, and for the most part I follow this practice.

Unfortunately, most patients have caused irreversible damage to the lining of their nose and quitting smoking does not improve their symptoms. Many patients experience a worsening of their symptoms since goblet cell hypertrophy takes place which increases nasal secretions. Because cillary function (micro hair structures which clean the nose) is often permanently damaged, these secretions are not cleared and the patient experiences worsening over many months of his/her symptoms. The best treatment is to quit smoking and use hypertonic saline nasal irrigations (over-the-counter buffered hypertonic nasal spray) in combination with the use of nasal steroids. However, as with patients with chronic lung disease from smoking, patients with smoker's rhinitis, seldom return to a completely normal state.

IF YOU SMOKE..QUIT!!

What are the risks in Tabacco?

What are the risks?

• Addiction
• Health Risks
• Other Negatives Your Date Won't Like
• Secondhand Smoke

Addiction

Nicotine in tobacco, a strong poison, is the most addictive of all drugs. It stimulates the same areas of the brain as cocaine and amphetamines, and tolerance to nicotine develops faster than to cocaine or heroin.

Neurochemically, the body adapts to the toxins in tobacco a few hours after smoking. Soon smoking becomes necessary to feel "normal."

Health Risks

• Cancer -- Cancer of the lungs, mouth, throat, esophagus and more.

• Frequent colds.

• Chronic bronchitis.

• Emphysema.

• Stroke.

• Heart disease.

Other Negatives Your Date Won't Like

• Stained teeth.

• Bad breath.

• Clothes, hair, hands, room and car reek of smoke.

• Premature face wrinkles.

• Diminished sense of taste and smell.

• Smoking drains your wallet ($2.25 or more a pack).

• Chewing tobacco leaves gross stuff between your teeth -- no kissing for you.

Secondhand Smoke

By smoking you hurt others. Tobacco smoke is a serious threat to the health of nonsmokers. Smoke in the air from others' cigarettes contains toxic chemicals including tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide, arsenic and cyanide. Nonsmokers who breathe it absorb these substances and are at risk for the same serious health consequences as smokers.

India's Tobacco Board

India's Tobacco Board

India's Tobacco Board is headquartered in Guntur in the state of Andhra Pradesh. India has 96,865 registered tobacco farmers and many more who are not registered. Around 0.25% of India’s cultivated land is used for tobacco production.
Since 1947, the Indian government has supported growth in the tobacco industry. India has seven tobacco research centers that are located in Madras (now known as Chennai, Tamil Nadu), Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Bihar, Mysore, West Bengal, and Rajamundry. Rajahmundry houses the core research institute. The government has set up a Central Tobacco Promotion Council, which works to increase exports of Indian tobacco.

The Indian Government and several states have taken multiple measures to reduce Cigarette smoking. Smoking in public places is banned in many states, it is not allowed to be portrayed in movies, warnings are posted on cigarette packs

Types of Tobacco

Types of Tobacco

There are a number of types of tobacco including, but are not limited to:

• Aromatic fire-cured, it is cured by smoke from open fires. In the United States, it is grown in northern middle Tennessee, central Kentucky and in Virginia. Fire-cured tobacco grown in Kentucky and Tennessee are used in some chewing tobaccos, moist snuff, some cigarettes, and as a condiment in pipe tobacco blends. Another fire-cured tobacco is Latakia, which is produced from oriental varieties of N. tabacum. The leaves are cured and smoked over smoldering fires of local hardwoods and aromatic shrubs in Cyprus and Syria.

• Brightleaf tobacco, Brightleaf is commonly known as "Virginia tobacco", often regardless of the state where they are planted. Prior to the American Civil War, most tobacco grown in the US was fire-cured dark-leaf. This type of tobacco was planted in fertile lowlands, used a robust variety of leaf, and was either fire cured or air cured. Most Canadian cigarettes are made from 100% pure Virginia tobacco.

• Burley tobacco, is an air-cured tobacco used primarily for cigarette production. In the U.S., burley tobacco plants are started from palletized seeds placed in polystyrene trays floated on a bed of fertilized water in March or April.

• Cavendish is more a process of curing and a method of cutting tobacco than a type. The processing and the cut are used to bring out the natural sweet taste in the tobacco. Cavendish can be produced from any tobacco type, but is usually one of, or a blend of Kentucky, Virginia, and burley, and is most commonly used for pipe tobacco and cigars.

• Criollo tobacco is a type of tobacco, primarily used in the making of cigars. It was, by most accounts, one of the original Cuban tobaccos that emerged around the time of Columbus.

• Dokha, is a tobacco originally grown in Iran, mixed with leaves, bark, and herbs for smoking in a midwakh.

• Turkish tobacco, is a sun-cured, highly aromatic, small-leafed variety (Nicotiana tabacum) that is grown in Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. Originally grown in regions historically part of the Ottoman Empire, it is also known as "oriental". Many of the early brands of cigarettes were made mostly or entirely of Turkish tobacco; today, its main use is in blends of pipe and especially cigarette tobacco (a typical American cigarette is a blend of bright Virginia, burley and Turkish).

• Perique, a farmer called Pierre Chenet is credited with first turning this local tobacco into the Perique in 1824 through the technique of pressure-fermentation. Considered the truffle of pipe tobaccos, it is used as a component in many blended pipe tobaccos, but is too strong to be smoked pure. At one time, the freshly moist Perique was also chewed, but none is now sold for this purpose. It is typically blended with pure Virginia to lend spice, strength, and coolness to the blend.

• Shade tobacco, is cultivated in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Early Connecticut colonists acquired from the Native Americans the habit of smoking tobacco in pipes, and began cultivating the plant commercially, even though the Puritans referred to it as the "evil weed". The industry has weathered some major catastrophes, including a devastating hailstorm in 1929, and an epidemic of brown spot fungus in 2000, but is now in danger of disappearing altogether, given the value of the land to real estate speculators.

• White burley, in 1865, George Webb of Brown County, Ohio planted red burley seeds he had purchased, and found that a few of the seedlings had a whitish, sickly look. The air-cured leaf was found to be more mild than other types of tobacco.

• Wild tobacco, is native to the southwestern United States, Mexico, and parts of South America. Its botanical name is Nicotiana rustica.

Y1 is a strain of tobacco cross-bred by Brown & Williamson in the 1970s to obtain an unusually high nicotine content. In the 1990s, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used it as evidence that tobacco companies were intentionally manipulating the nicotine content of cigarettes.

What is Tobacco?

What is Tobacco?

Cigars, Cigarettes and Chewing Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural crop, most commonly used to make cigarettes. It is grown all over the world and supports a billion-dollar industry. The psychoactive ingredient is nicotine, a stimulant, but more than 4,000 other chemicals (2,000 of which are known to be poisonous) are present in cigarettes.

Tobacco is a nervous system stimulant that triggers complex biochemical and neurotransmitter disruptions. It elevates heart rate and blood pressure, constricts blood vessels, irritates lung tissue, and diminishes your ability to taste and smell.

Tobacco can be processed, dried, rolled and smoked as:

Cigarettes
Cigars
Bidis (thin, hand-rolled cigarettes imported from Southeast Asia)
Clove cigarettes
Kreteks (cigarettes imported from Indonesia that contain cloves and other additives).

Loose-leaf tobacco can be smoked in pipes and hookahs (an Asian smoking pipe with a long tube that passes through an urn of water).

The two most common forms of smokeless tobacco are chewing tobacco and snuff (finely ground tobacco placed between the gum and lip).

Today World No Tobacco Day 2011

Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as an organic pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines. It is most commonly used as a recreational drug, and is a valuable cash crop for countries such as Cuba, China and the United States.

In consumption it most commonly appears in the forms of smoking, chewing, snuffing, or dipping tobacco, or snus. Tobacco had long been in use as an entheogen in the Americas, but upon the arrival of Europeans in North America, it quickly became popularized as a trade item and a recreational drug. This popularization led to the development of the southern economy of the United States until it gave way to cotton. Following the American Civil War, a change in demand and a change in labor force allowed for the development of the cigarette. This new product quickly led to the growth of tobacco companies, until the scientific controversy of the mid-1900s.
There are more than 70 species of tobacco in the plant genus Nicotiana. The word nicotiana (as well as nicotine) is in honor of Jean Nicot, French ambassador to Portugal, who in 1559 sent it as a medicine to the court of Catherine de Medici.
Because of the addictive properties of nicotine, tolerance and dependence develop. Absorption quantity, frequency, and speed of tobacco consumption are believed to be directly related to biological strength of nicotine dependence, addiction, and tolerance. The usage of tobacco is an activity that is practiced by some 1.1 billion people, and up to 1/3 of the adult population. The World Health Organization(WHO) reports it to be the leading preventable cause of death worldwide and estimates that it currently causes 5.4 million deaths per year. Rates of smoking have leveled off or declined in developed countries, but continue to rise in developing countries.

Tobacco is cultivated similarly to other agricultural products. Seeds are sown in cold frames or hotbeds to prevent attacks from insects, and then transplanted into the fields. Tobacco is an annual crop, which is usually harvested mechanically or by hand. After harvest, tobacco is stored for curing, which allows for the slow oxidation and degradation of carotenoids. This allows for the agricultural product to take on properties that are usually attributed to the "smoothness" of the smoke. Following this, tobacco is packed into its various forms of consumption, which include smoking, chewing, sniffing, and so on.