Herbal News Magazine
All About Herbal Medicine, Alternative Health News and Natural Supplements
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Would You Quit Smoking After Finding Out You Are Ill?
Filed under Alternative & Herbal Health News, Smoking CessationJan 25I read the most fascinating article about people who are diagnosed with a disease that is clearly related to smoking such as COPD, lung cancer, Emphysema and other commonly related diseases. You would think people would quit the habit after finding out they ar diagnosed with one of the top causes of death, but many of them don’t. It’s not quite fifty percent of people who don’t quit but let me tell you it’s darn near that.
Roughly estimated, it’s about 40% of people who are diagnosed with one of these devasatating diseases that still do not quit smoking. This goes to show just how mentally and physically addictive nicotine and tobacco are to the human body. I even have a personal story to tell about this.
Someone close to me in my family was diagnosed with prostate cancer in his late fifties. He never did quit smoking the entire time even when he was going through chemotherapy and all the other various poison therapies he unfortunately had to be on.
Now, I get that when a person is near the end of their life and are in the terminal stages of cancer they should just “do what they want”, but there is always a chance to come back, and smoking carcinogens into your lungs is certainly a good way to hasten the disease along.
He really couldn’t quit. He was that addicted to smoking and figured he still wanted to enjoy the habit even after his cancer took a turn for the worse and he became terminal. Stopping the habit is indeed challenging. I was a smoker in college and had a hard time quitting, even though I had asthma and I never should have picked up the habit in the first place.
My conscious, intelligent mind was telling me to quit, yet my body and mind were also telling me how good it felt to hold that cigarette in my hand, inhale slowly and let the chemicals take control of my mind, giving me that great buzz that cigarettes give you.
It is indeed a huge challenge, but it’s worth it. I’ve been off cigarettes for almost a decade now and feel so much healthier. It’s a shame that so many people, even after diagnosed with life threatening disease, cannot find the willpower to quit – this is a testament to how addictive and dangerous this pastime is.
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Tagged as: cancer, diagnosed, emphysema lung cancer, high, keep smoking, people, percentage, quit, smoking, terminally ill -
Jan 22
Everyone knows that smoking cigarettes, cigars and other things you inhale hot smoke into your lungs with are dangerous to your health. That has definitely been more than established by the medical community. As if to drive the point home even further, the Center for Disease Control has released their top death causes list.
And guess what? The top three causes are related in some way to smoking. That’s not to say there are not other factors involved such as genetics, other lifestyle choices and environmental factors. However, each of them can have a direct relation to the act of smoking. Which makes quitting smoking all that much more important.
3 Smoking-Related Causes of Death
1.) Emphysema and other lung function disease such as COPD. This one is one of the most undeniably smoking-related health issues that can lead to death pretty easily. Aside from lung cancer, it is a definite link to smoking – although, as with everything else, it can also happen on its own without smoking, but that is pretty rare and the link is a well known one.
2.) Cancer. There are several types of cancer that are related to smoking. Cigarettes are a carcinogen. Not only does the smoke produce toxic by-products, but the cigarettes themselves contain harmful chemicals that permeate not only the lungs and other organs in the body, but also the surfaces of furniture, the walls in homes, the surfaces in cars, and everywhere else the harmful habit is done, making it carcinogenic not only to the smoker, but also to “second hand smokers”. Basically, cigarette smoke is a cancer causing agent, and for that reason, it has been linked to everything from breast cancer to prostate cancer.
3.) Heart disease. Heart disease can be partially genetic, true. It can also be greatly attributed to your diet and lack of exercise. However, smoking is also another acknowledged risk factor in determining likelihood of heart disease. Your ticker is affected by smoking because smoking raises heart rate and also increases blood pressure and stress levels, all of which are not heart friendly and cause damage over the years.
Smoking generally makes the smoker feel relaxed in the very moments they are smoking (and gives them a feel-good buzz too, hence the addictiveness). However, this is misleading because in the end smoking really jacks our nervous system up and increases dangerous anxiety and stress hormone levels, none of which is good for the heart.
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Nov 15
Chantix, a blockbuster drug that has been prescribed mostly as a smoking cessation drug, has recently been linked to a higher rate of suicide than smokers who try to quit without the help of a drug. The suprising part is that even nicotine patches were linked to a slightly higher risk of suicide in smokers who are trying to quit smoking.
However, the Chantix was statistically significant enough to warrant some concern. Chantix is supposed to be a drug that helps with anxiety and mood. However, it is primarily prescribed for smokers, because these are two things that suffer when one tries to quit smoking.
Of course, there are some herbal smoking cessation products as well that can work wonders for those trying to quit permanently. Chantix not only comes with a potentially higher risk of suicide, but it also must carry warnings on the label for the possibility of black outs.
The drug has actually been banned for use by pilots because of the risk of blacking out. The increased risk of depression and suicide are also listed as warnings on the label due to regulations regarding such serious potential side effects.
The company that makes Chantix is of course defending the product, saying that there are enough customers of Chantix that have had great success in quitting smoking with the drug to make up for the few that may have adverse side effects. When taking a drug like this with potential side effects or risks, it is important to use your judgement and aks yourself if the risk is worth the reward.
If you think quitting smoking is something you must do for your health, you can take a drug like this or you can also try an herbal or natural method for quitting as well. Either one is really geared toward controlling mood, appetite and cravings so that your risk of gaining weight and moodiness is reduced as much as it possibly can be when you quit this hard to kick habit.
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Tagged as: anti smoking, cessation, chantix, drug, higher, quit, quitting, quitting smoking, risk, smoking, smoking cessation, suicidal, suicide -
Sep 22
In addition to the multiple ways that smoking is toxic to your health, women have yet another reason not to pick up the habit, or to quit smoking if they currently engage in this risky pastime. Men do too, since they have a higher risk of prostate cancer among other things though, so men are by no way counted out.
But this article is about women. So, let’s talk about why women have yet another reason to stop smoking cigarettes. New research has indicated that in addition to increasing women’s risk of heart disease and multiple kinds of cancer, smoking also apparently is linked to higher rates of bladder problems.
These problems include frequency of urination, discomfort in urination, and an increase in frequency and urgency both when it comes to urinating. The women in the study who smoked reported much more incidence of urinary tract and bladder problems.
The study authors were careful to note that smoking in itself is not indicated to be the sole cause of urinary tract issues in women, however, there does seem to be a link. It may be that women who smoke also have other lifestyle habits or predispositions naturally.
There is no clear link between nicotine, smoke biproducts, or anything else that smoking emits that would cause incontinence, but there is some sort of link because the results of the survey indicate it.
Researchers hope that younger smokers will use this as an excuse to quit smoking. This, coupled with the fact that smoking causes premature skin aging and teeth yellowing, may appeal to younger smokers a little more than other things that seem more unlikely to people at a young age like heart disease and cancer, so researchers are hoping they use this to their advantage and get more people to quit.
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Aug 30
Have you seen the new pictures that tobacco companies are being forced to put on their labels in a prominent position, even larger than their own brand name by the Federal Government? Well, if you have, trust me, some of them are graphic images, or very emotionally tugging images that will stick with you long after you’ve seen them.
Some are graphic pictures of cancer patients, while yet another tugs on the heart strings by showing a young child. Either way, the emotions are definitely played on, and that’s what they are going for – to get people who are buying cigarettes to reconsider their purchase – and their smoking habit.
But has the Federal government gone too far in censoring (essentially) a product that everyone knows is bad for them (like alcohol) and still choosing, of their own free will, to keep on smoking cigarettes?
Well, that may be more of a case for Legal experts to answer, but it is also an increasing concern among others in a lot of other industries. Don’t get me wrong, smoking is bad, and I think everyone who does it should seriously try to quit smoking.
However, I think there is more an issue of big brother trying to force the issue a bit, and forcing companies to even compromise their business by forcing certain labeling. We all know that cigarettes are bad for us. It is pretty much common knowledge these days.
But it didn’t always used to be. Cigarettes were a HUGE industry back in the fifties and even sixties. People sort of knew they weren’t healthy, but the true long term effects and multitude of health issues they contribute to were not fully known yet back then.
Now that we’ve had decades to study their ill effects on human health, it is much easier to say that they are, hands down, just something that has no saving graces as a vice.
However, smoking is still a legal thing that can be engaged in, and they are going almost as far as to ban it in some cases. Second hand smoke has become a huge issue that is often talked about, and the rights of the people standing around smokers.
I myself hate to inhale second hand smoke. However, I do question us completely outlawing it for people who are hooked on the habit. Isn’t that a little bit too “socialist”?
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