Stop smoking

Breaking the smoking habit

If you smoke, giving up smoking is probably the greatest single step you can take to improve your health.

Smokers are at greater risk from illness and early death than non-smokers. There are many serious and often fatal diseases caused by smoking. The most common of these are:

• lung cancer - the younger you start and the more you smoke, the greater the risk
• chronic bronchitis and emphysema
• coronary heart disease - if you smoke, the risk of dying from coronary heart disease begins early in life. Smokers aged 40 are seven times more likely to die from a heart attack than non-smokers of the same age.

What makes cigarettes harmful?

Cigarette smoke contains more than 4000 chemicals, many of them poisonous. Nicotine, carbon monoxide and tar are three components of smoke that affect the human body and cause disease.

• Carbon monoxide - a poisonous gas also found in car exhaust fumes. It reduces the amount of oxygen transported in the blood by up to 15 per cent. Carbon monoxide is linked with heart disease and circulation problems.
   
• Tar - contains cancer-causing substances. About 70 per cent of the tar in cigarette smoke is deposited in the lungs where it can cause severe damage. Smokers of low-tar or mild cigarettes take in as much tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide and other poisonous substances as smokers of regular cigarettes.

Smoking during pregnancy

Women who smoke while they are pregnant increase the risk of spontaneous abortion and of having a low birthweight or premature baby. These babies are at higher risk of death and disease at an early age.

2nd Hand smoke

Only 15 per cent of a cigarette's smoke is inhaled by the smoker, the rest goes into the surrounding air and other people can breathe it in. Breathing the smoke from somebody else's cigarette is called 2nd hand smoke (previously known as passive smoking).

Recent research results point to evidence of a new phenomenon called 3rd hand smoke whereby the toxins and poisonous chemicals contained in cigarette smoke linger on surfaces and in dust long after the smoke has gone. Such surfaces include carpets, toys, and sofas to name a few.  Toxins from cigarette smoke can harm the health of families and in particular children with their developing immune system. They are more prone to chest, ear, nose and throat infections and to more serious conditions such as bronchitis and pneumonia.