Smoking is an addictive disease, and is the leading single cause of disease and premature death in developed countries. Smoking is the main cause of numerous diseases, especially respiratory, cardiovascular and tumor diseases, and is often the cause of their exacerbation.
It also has serious effects on the respiratory health of pregnant women and children. Air Polluted by Tobacco Smoke (ACHT) is also a health problem, and as indicated by the World Health Organization, it is harmful at any level of exposure.
Currently, lung cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to diagnose and treat, and also the one that produces the highest mortality. In our environment, lung cancer causes more deaths in men than colon and prostate cancer combined. In turn, more women die of lung cancer than the sum of those who die of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer.
And the fact is that, if we were to stop smoking, the cases of lung cancer would be practically anecdotal, and would even disappear as a health problem, because the main and almost the only etiological factor of lung cancer is tobacco.
On the other hand, tobacco is the cause of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) or tobacco-induced bronchitis, and is at the origin of a large part of respiratory and cardiovascular health problems. For example, for anyone who smokes, quitting smoking has a greater impact on their health than normalizing cholesterol or high blood pressure levels.
The effects of smoking are cumulative, as is the case with ionizing radiation. Each cigarette counts, because it adds up to all the previous ones.
Why is tobacco addictive?
Tobacco is addictive due to its nicotine content. Nicotine is a drug with a strong addictive component, so that it induces a strong dependence, which can be compared to that caused by cocaine or heroin.
The earlier the contact with nicotine, the stronger the addiction can become, and the more difficult it will be to quit smoking.
Reasons to quit smoking
Giving up smoking and contact with tobacco smoke is the best decision one can make in terms of health. Always, in any situation, and at any age, it is better to quit smoking than to continue smoking.
Quitting smoking rapidly improves carbon monoxide (CO) and nicotine intoxication levels and the health effects of smoking begin to decline.
How to quit smoking, is there any specific treatment dedicated to it, and what does it consist of?
To quit smoking the first and fundamental thing is to make the decision, and this decision has to be personal, of each smoker.
Nowadays there are many methods to help smokers to stop smoking, and all of them must be personalized. There are very effective therapies based on the use of drugs and nicotine preparations in the form of patches, tablets or chewing gum.
The experience of smokers who manage to quit with these treatments is usually that it has not cost them as much as they initially thought, and that “if I had known about it, I would have tried it sooner”.
It is also true that relapses are frequent after quitting smoking, and that this should not discourage smokers from continuing to try. In any case, it should be kept in mind that once you quit smoking, it is best not to experiment with tobacco again. Quitting smoking is not about becoming a “non-smoker”, it is about becoming “a smoker who has decided that he no longer wants to smoke”, to improve his health, his life expectancy, his environment, his economy, his quality of life, etc.
It should be remembered, in this regard, that the new devices that are becoming widespread, such as electronic cigarettes, smokeless systems or water pipes, not only do not help to quit smoking, but maintain the addiction, induce consumption among the youngest, and are equally harmful to health.