Quit Smoking

Archive for March, 2010

In the beginning of April it will be my first year with cancer.

One full year has almost passed from the time doctors told me I have cancer. And this is also a year without smoking tobacco, snuffing it or something. I can’t tell you what I feel, cause I don’t know exactly. Smoking was my passion, and now my passion is to keep my life. And – also – this is no date one will celebrate.

Lung cancer made everything in my life different. This was a heavy strike for my family, my relatives and friends. Do you have someone with lung cancer, who have been senior smokers? Have they quitted smoking till now?

Frequently I think how greatly life could change if only I could forbid myself to smoke when I was younger.

These are things I will remember (taken from the Internet):

1. The incidence of lung cancer is strongly correlated with cigarette smoking, with about 90% of lung cancers arising as a result of tobacco use.

2. Passive smoking or the inhalation of tobacco smoke by nonsmokers who share living or working quarters with smokers, also is an established risk factor for the development of lung cancer. Nonsmokers who reside with a smoker have a 24% increase in risk for developing lung cancer when compared with nonsmokers who do not reside with a smoker. Around 3,000 lung cancer deaths that occur each year are attributable to passive smoking.

An this are things I will never do:

1. I will never smoke even a cigarette more.
2. I will never snuff, or chew, or make use of tobacco any other way. Forever.
3. I will never sit near smoker if I can leave. It is my right to be free from tobacco smoke.

And this what I will do: I will fight the disease, I will manage myself, I will help anyone with cancer, or who wants to quit smoking, who needs a word of support. I will tell about smoking causing cancer. So – this is what I promise I will do.

Please, answer me, what do you think makes people kill themselves with smoking?

Doctors warned, that lifestyle men are more likely to carry on is making danger to have cancer and die from it 70% bigger. Unhealthy lifestyles: smoking, big weight; keeping emotions inside are two causes of cancer research workers found to be the biggest. So called ’stiff upper lip’ way of controlling anxiety calls for big emotional powers and often causes stress.

People say “big girls don’t cry”, but it seems that they are, and this even helps women to feel better and have less chances to get cancer. Of course women smoke too and there are also many women with excess weight, but statistic shows that the amount of men who suffer from this things is much bigger.

Overall, men are 16 per cent more likely to develop cancer than women and 40 per cent more likely to die from it. But if we remove prostate and breast cancer that are only of one sex, the percentage will be up to 69-70%.

Men tend to be less health conscious than women and miss out on the routine health checks women are given when prescribed contraception and during pregnancy.

Another researcher, Catherine Thomson, of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘We feel there aren’t any obvious biological reasons, so we think it is about lifestyle risk factors, in terms of men being less likely to go to their GP and more likely to ignore the symptoms and bury their heads in the sand.’

Men tend to accumulate fat around their stomach, rather than waist and thighs, which raises the risks of many health problems including cancer.

‘The advice to men is that if you have a problem and it hasn’t gone away when you think it should have, then go and get it checked out,’ he said.

Smoking is even more harmful than excess weight doctors say, and if one wants to keep fit and live longer he’s got to control his lifestyle, leave stresses behind and think about future with positive attitude.

1. Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer deaths in both men and women in the United States.

2. More than 154,000 Americans will die from lung cancer in 2002.

3. Only 12-15% of patients with lung cancer are being cured with today’s treatments.

4. 80% of patients with lung cancer detected by computerized tomographic (CT) screening in the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP) achieve long-term survival.

5. More than 90% of lung cancers are preventable.

6. Definition: “A cigarette is a euphemism for a cleverly crafted product that delivers just the right amount of nicotine to keep its user addicted for life before killing the person.” World Health Organization director-general Gro Harlem Brundtland

7. Recent polls indicate that, despite all accumulated knowledge on the subject of diseases caused by tobacco products, a shockingly high percentage of smokers continue to believe that their cigarettes will not cause them harm.

8. A recent National Cancer Institute focus group suggests that many ex-smokers believe that they are no longer at risk for lung cancer. This is a dangerous misperception. Unfortunately, some risk of lung cancer persists for many years following smoking cessation. The good news is that the risk diminishes with the passage of time.

9. The overwhelming majority of lung cancers, greater than 90%, are caused by cigarette smoking. There are currently almost fifty million smokers in the U.S. and another fifty million are ex-smokers.

My friends often ask me if whether I feel myself depressed – because I am one with cancer. This disease is famous for acting great bad on mood and psycho. I answer them – I stand. And if I stand – I will survive and live my life.

My blog helps me great. Frequently I search for news about people and medical committees that battle cancer – by means of researching, helping others. It helps great.

Of more than 560 thousands deaths from cancer in USA, 1/3 is the result of tobacco use.

“The extent to which our cancer rates are high has more to do with our lifestyles than health care systems,” Dr. Phillips Roberts said.

“The best way to get current smokers to quit and discourage young people from smoking is to make cigarettes more expensive”, Roberts said.

This is from an article I’ve found, reporting about cancer in United States, with professional opinion of the director of the Phoebe Cancer Center. To my mind, making prices higher will be efficient only together with other means like informational support, social advertising and global anti-smoking actions. For example, the district of Southwest Georgia (where the center is situated) has a tobacco program manager whose duties include visiting area schools to discourage students from picking up the habit.

Doctor also advises to keep normal weight. For colorectal cancer, the best defense is through diet and maintaining a healthy weight. High weight and smoking also comes to be a threat of heart diseases.

What do you personally think about making prices higher as a way to compete smoking, especially among people of the early age?

Scientists continue researching cancer theme and here is the latest news.

Previously it was doubtful that smoking tobacco may cause developing and dying from prostate cancer, but after twenty-four studies involving 21,600 men suffering from this disease doctors got new results. This type of cancer is the most often to show up among U.S. men.

Not to say I think this type of cancer is more dangerous than my disease, but it acts on one’s mind and emotions very bad, as well as causing serious pain.

In the American Journal of Public Health, Huncharek and colleagues report results of their analysis – a research method that illuminates risks better than previous individual studies other scientist did.

In eight studies that did provide more in-depth number of cigarettes smoked per day in nearly 8,700 men, Huncharek’s team estimates 30 percent greater risk of dying from prostate cancer in the heaviest smokers versus nonsmokers.

They likewise estimate 22 percent greater chance for developing prostate cancer in the heaviest smokers, so it’s connected to the amount of packs you smoke.

But Huncharek stressed that even such studies do not show an individual smoker’s chance for developing or dying from prostate cancer when compared with their nonsmoking counterparts.

So he with his colleagues from the research institute are looking forward for additional research that quantifies how the number of packs and duration of smoking affects risk for developing the disease.

This may appear interesting for men who worry about their men’s health, as well as for fathers of sons. In my opinion such information is something to worry about.

Interesting story came to me one day when I was searching for information associated with cancer and cigarette smoking. This is a story of a cancer survivor, so it’s even closer for me than you can imagine.

Rick Bender performed at Montana State University with his story in front of an audience of 30 people – students and academic staff. His story was about his struggle for life – he had got an aggressive for of mouth cancer.

According to his words Rick began using smokeless tobacco in the age of 12 because he wanted to be “a good old boy” for his friends. Then he though that spit tobacco will be much safer than smoking it, and this will underline his individuality, so he started to use Copenhagen snuff. In those times there was a heavy advertising of snuff on TV – star football players advised to use snuff instead of smoking tobacco.

The thing happened when Bender was only 26 years old – he suffered from painful sores on his tongue. According to doctor’s words the only thing they could do in order to save Rick’s life was part amputation of his tongue. By the way, till this time he was already using up to one can a day.

I am familiar with the way he had got to pass. Rick Bender underwent 12 hours of surgery and radiation therapy, and more surgeries. Besides loosing part of his tongue, his nerves were damaged during operation on his lymph nodes – his right arm suffered fro 25% move damage.

Rick’s story is enlightening like it is, but besides this Rich also added many other things – now he spreads his word about the threat that spit tobacco possesses – in schools, Indian reservations, universities and public houses. Every can contains as much nicotine as three or four packs of cigarettes and 28 cancer-causing chemicals, he said. Spit tobacco is connected with gum disease, mouth cancer, nicotine addiction, heart disease, stroke, throat cancer and other diseases.

Rick stresses that even nowadays tobacco advertising is too heavy, and billions are spent on popularizing tobacco use in the countries of 3-rd world: Africa, Asia. The main idea is – using chewing tobacco is not safer than smoking

So be aware too.