You might be here because you are thinking to stop smoking OR you are READY to quit smoking. Whatever it is, you need to know the facts.
| The facts about smoking and the facts about quitting. Hopefully after you read this page you will have better knowledge thus make you ready OR more ready to quit smoking. |
Nicotine is a powerful addiction. It is a very addictive drug that can even as addictive as heroin or cocaine
Quitting takes hard work and a lot of effort, but you can quit smoking.
Tobacco kills more than 1,500,000 MIDDLE-AGED humans each year. On average each will die 22.5 years early. Sadly, we can't all be average.
Pregnant women who smoke can pass nicotine and carbon monoxide to their baby through the placenta. Research indicates this can prevent the baby from getting the oxygen and nutrients it needs to grow -- potentially leading to fetal injury, premature birth, or low birth weight. According to the American Lung Association, smoking during pregnancy accounts for an estimated 20 to 30 percent of low birthweight babies, up to 14 percent of premature deliveries, and about 10 percent of all infant deaths.
A mother who smokes can also pass nicotine to her baby through her breast milk.
The studies didn't just point to the ill effects of smoking on those who smoke -- non-smokers, too, are apparently affected by the smoke from their friends, family members and strangers who light up in their presence.
A steady stream of reports documented the statistical risks of contracting cancer or suffering from heart disease, even if you've never put a cigarette to your lips.
The American Heart Association last fall released a seven-year study showing that never-smoking spouses of smokers have more than a 20 percent greater chance of death from coronary heart disease than those who have never smoked who live with non-smokers. That study gave more impetus to the drive to make workplaces and other public areas smoke-free.
The effects of smoking are hard on the children of smokers as well, the studies say. Dr. Claude Hanet of the St. Luc University Hospital in Brussels, Belgium, said earlier this year that a baby born to a smoking mother "should be considered an ex-smoker."
Hanet's study cautioned that cigarette smoke was more detrimental with decreasing age.
And a University of Birmingham, England, study, published in the British Journal of Cancer showed a possible link between fathers who smoked and an increased incidence of cancers in their children, while studies in the U.S. showed a possible link between smoking and DNA damage.
Couples who smoke are more likely to have fertility problems than couples
who are non-smokers.
Smokers take 25 per cent more sick days year than non-smokers.
