Dengerous of Smoking

If you smoke, giving up is probably the greatest single step you can take to improve your health. Seven out of ten smokers say that they want to stop, but most believe they can't. However, half of all smokers eventually manage to stop smoking.

Smoking is the biggest cause of death and illness in the UK. More than 120,000 people die each year from diseases caused by smoking.

Smoking is a major contributor to many serious diseases, such as heart disease and lung cancer.  

Tobacco in cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco, contains poisons such as ammonia, acetone, carbon monoxide, cyanide and arsenic. Altogether, cigarettes can often contain over 4000 chemicals.

FACTS

1. Smoking increases your risk of getting lung diseases like pneumonia, emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
2. Smokers are twice as likely to die from heart attacks as are non-smokers.
3. Every year, about 3,000 non-smoking adults die of lung cancer as a result of breathing secondhand smoke.
4. Every year, between 200,000 and one million asthmatic kids suffer from increasingly severe asthma attacks due to secondhand smoke.
5. Women over 35 who smoke and use birth control pills have a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and blood clots of the legs.

It is important that you stop smoking because you want to. Write down your reasons, and keep the list to hand over the next few months. Think of the benefits: less coughing, cleaner clothes, better breathing (for you and your friends and family), more money, and a lower risk of developing smoking-related illnesses.

When you have decided to stop, make a plan:

• choose a day to quit; ask family and friends for their support
• plan a reward for the end of your first day, and the end of the first week, and the first month
• and the day before, get rid of cigarettes, ashtrays and lighters

You could also talk to your doctor or pharmacist about nicotine replacement therapy. Used properly, these products can double the success rate of stopping smoking.