Smoking

Overview

Fifty years ago smoking was thought of as an exclusively male "pastime." But in the decades since, women have just about closed the gender gap while at the same time experiencing the same and other dire health consequences as men. According to the most recently available statistics from 2006, 23.5 percent of men and 18.1 percent of women were smokers. Every year, smoking kills an estimated 438,000 people through smoking-related diseases, including lung and other cancers, heart disease, stroke and chronic lung diseases such as emphysema.

Smoking has long been the leading cause of preventable death and disease among women. And, according to recent surveys, many women do not realize that lung cancer, once rare among women, surpassed breast cancer in 1987 as the leading cause of female cancer death in the United States.

In fact, according to the U.S. Surgeon General's report "The Health Consequences of Smoking," released in 2004, it has been proven that smoking can cause disease in nearly every organ of the body, in men as well as women. The list of diseases caused by smoking has been expanded to include abdominal aortic aneurysm, acute myeloid leukemia, cataract, cervical cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer, pneumonia, periodontitis and stomach cancer. These are in addition to diseases previously known to be caused by smoking, including bladder, colorectal, liver, esophageal, laryngeal, lung, oral and throat cancers, chronic lung diseases, coronary heart and cardiovascular diseases, as well as reproductive effects and sudden infant death syndrome.

Smoking also harms many aspects and every phase of reproduction: menstrual function, oral contraceptive use, fertility, problems in pregnancy and giving birth to low-weight babies, among other conditions.

In addition to causing lung and other cancers, lung disease, coronary heart disease and stroke, smoking also increases your risk of developing osteoporosis. Smoking is related to an increased risk for hip fracture as well, especially among postmenopausal women (studies have shown that bone mineral density and body mass are lower in smokers). Smoking also affects your appearance. Long-term smoking will cause your skin to wrinkle prematurely and lose its elasticity, your nails and teeth to turn yellow and your breath to smell foul.

While smoking rates have fallen among women since 1965—33.9 percent of women were smokers in 1965, as compared with 18.1 percent in 2006—teenagers are still lighting up, though at declining rates from earlier decades. According to the American Lung Association, in 2007, 20 percent of high school students reported smoking in the last 30 days, down from 36.4 percent in 1997.

Adolescents who smoke are generally less physically fit and have more respiratory illnesses than their nonsmoking peers. In addition, smoking by adolescents hastens the onset of lung function decline during late adolescence and early adulthood. Smoking by adolescents is also related to impaired lung growth, chronic coughing and wheezing.

Why Teenage Girls Smoke Despite Known Risks

With all of the negative publicity about smoking, why do so many women and teenage girls continue to smoke? Teenagers vastly underestimate the addiction potential of nicotine. A woman who begins smoking when she is young will have a very difficult time quitting as she ages and becomes more concerned with the health consequences.

It is well documented that there are social, political and economic forces that influence tobacco use, particularly among youth. A major factor influencing susceptibility to and initiation of smoking among girls, in the United States and overseas, is the tobacco industry's long-standing (75 years or more) targeted marketing to women and girls. Tobacco marketers know that if they can hook children, these children are more likely to become lifelong customers.

The tobacco industry spends more than $13 billion dollars annually in the United States to advertise and promote its products, including print media advertising (cigarette ads are banned from television and radio); distribution of free samples, cents-off coupons, T-shirts and other giveaways; movie product placements; cultural programs; donations to a wide range of national and local organizations; and political contributions to elected officials.

Women's Greater Vulnerability to Tobacco

Some research has revealed that women might be more susceptible to the addictive properties of nicotine and have a slower metabolic clearance of nicotine from their bodies than men. Also, women seem to be more susceptible to the effects of tobacco carcinogens than men.

Women also tend to smoke for different reasons than men, citing more emotional triggers, such as relief of stress, anxiety, anger or depression.

Smoking and Addiction

Nicotine is what keeps smokers addicted to tobacco, and it doesn't take long to get hooked. Nicotine is one of the most powerful addictive drugs—more addictive than heroin—yet it is also easily available and more socially accepted than other highly addictive substances.

Nicotine is the addictive chemical in tobacco but most of the negative health consequences of smoking are caused by the other 4,800 chemicals inhaled when tobacco products are burned. Carbon monoxide is also produced. It becomes attached to the red blood cells and decreases the oxygen available to the body tissues.

Nicotine's effect on the central nervous system is what makes smoking pleasurable. Nicotine has a calming effect and can relieve anxiety, boredom and irritability. Nicotine also has a stimulant effect, increasing alertness and improving concentration.

Within seven to 10 seconds of inhaling, your brain feels the effect of nicotine. Repeated inhalations maintain a steady blood level of nicotine. When you stop puffing, the blood level goes down. You light up again to deliver more nicotine to the brain. Pretty soon your brain and body consider it normal for you to have a certain blood level of nicotine. When that level goes down, you feel uncomfortable, irritable and unfocused. That's withdrawal. Now you are addicted. You smoke to keep from going into withdrawal, and you may find yourself smoking more and more.

Combined Effects of Smoking and Oral Contraceptives

Smoking cigarettes while taking birth control pills dramatically increases the risk of heart attack for women over 35. Smoking is far more dangerous to a woman's health than taking birth control pills, but the combination of oral contraceptive pill use and smoking has a greater effect on heart attack risk than when each factor is considered alone.

Smoking cigarettes while taking birth control pills increases a woman's risk of having an ischemic stroke (three times more likely in pill users than in nonusers) or a hemorrhagic stroke (three to four times that of nonusers), according to a large World Health Organization (WHO) study.

Effects of Smoking on Reproductive Health and Pregnancy

Smoking affects ovarian function and decreases the female hormone estrogen. If you are planning to become pregnant, cigarette smoking can impair your fertility by adversely affecting ovulatory and tubal function, egg production and implantation. Smoking may cause you to have irregular menstrual cycles. Women who smoke also have an earlier menopause, which may increase their risk of osteoporosis, heart disease and other conditions for which estrogen provides a protective effect.

Nearly 11 percent of pregnant women continue to smoke throughout their pregnancies. If you smoke while you are pregnant, you are putting yourself and your unborn child at increased risk for complications. Risks of smoking during pregnancy include:

•complications from bleeding

•low-birth–weight babies

•increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

•premature birth

•stillbirth

•placenta previa (the placenta grows too close to the opening of the uterus, a condition that often leads to Caesarean delivery)

•placental abruption (the placenta prematurely separates from the uterus wall)

•premature rupture of uterine membranes

•preeclampsia (a condition that results in high blood pressure and excess protein in the urine)

•reduction of the newborn's lung function

If you are a smoker and a nursing mother, it is important to know that nicotine is found in breast milk, and therefore enters your baby's system.

If you have children, your smoke puts them at risk, too. Secondhand smoke has been shown to make children more susceptible to infections, including colds and flu, ear infections, and lower respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. It also causes new cases of asthma, as well as making existing cases of asthma worse.

To learn more about secondhand smoke, visit the government-funded environmental health campaign, the Smoke-Free Home Pledge Initiative, designed to protect millions of America's children from the risks of secondhand smoke in their own homes. For more on this initiative, go to www.epa.gov/iaq/ets.

Diagnosis

Regardless of how much you smoke, you need to quit.

Researchers now know that there is a strong family component to addiction. If you have a family history of addiction, you should be aware of the risk for developing dependency, especially during stressful periods in your life.

The vast majority of smokers are addicted or dependent on nicotine. In addition to overcoming nicotine addiction, the quitting smoker must fight the actual habit of smoking, the behavioral activity of lighting up a cigarette so many times a day for so many years. For many smokers, smoking becomes associated with many daily activities (driving, talking on the phone, watching TV, for example) and often, these activities won't feel right without the cigarette. For many women, there is an emotional dependence on smoking. Maybe you smoke when you are stressed or sad. All of these issues combine to make smoking a powerful adversary if you are trying to kick the habit.

Even if you don't smoke, but you live, work or socialize with smokers, your health is at risk if these people smoke indoors or around you. Secondhand smoking is the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States, killing a total of approximately 50,000 nonsmokers per year. Consider asking the person to "take it outside" and not smoke in your presence to protect your own health.

Six Stages of Quitting

There is strong scientific evidence that being able to successfully quit smoking is not a matter of luck or willpower or simply flipping a light switch—making one quick change or decision that transforms you suddenly from smoker to nonsmoker. One concept is that the struggle to quit smoking is a series of stages, with your success being dependent on determining what stage of change you are in.

Psychologist James O. Prochaska and colleagues have developed a framework for the stages of change that people go through when trying to overcome an ingrained habit. These are described in his book, Changing for Good: A Revolutionary Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward (Harper Paperbacks, 1995). Smokers can cycle through this predictable set of stages, often multiple times, until they achieve

success:

Pre-contemplation:You have never tried to quit or even considered giving up smoking.

Contemplation:You are considering the need to quit smoking someday. You are waiting for something to motivate you or give you a reason to quit smoking. You are open to information and advice about quitting.

Preparation:You are preparing to stop smoking. You have either reduced the amount that you smoke or restricted your smoking. You are considering what to do the day you quit smoking. You are planning strategies for coping with urges to smoke.

Action:You are in the act of quitting. Congratulations! This phase includes the quit date and the first few months of quitting.

Maintenance:You are a former smoker! Being off tobacco products for any amount of time is a tremendous success...and even smokers who have quit for years occasionally relapse to smoking. That being said, the first year after you've quit is an important landmark, which should be celebrated. Smoking cessation experts say your risk of returning to smoking is low at this point.

Termination: The new behavior has become an integral part of your life to the point that the likelihood of relapse is almost nonexistent.

Facts to Know

The American Cancer Society estimated that in 2009, 70,000 women would die from lung cancer, compared to the 40,170 women who would die from breast cancer.

About 70 percent of smokers claim in surveys that they want to quit, and more than 40 percent of smokers report having tried to quit in the past year. However, the long-term success rate of a single unaided attempt to quit is low—only about 5 to 7 percent of smokers who attempt to quit are still not smoking one year later.

The health benefits of smoking far outweigh any risk of weight gain caused by quitting smoking. Research shows that the average weight gain after quitting smoking is six to eight pounds.

Quitting smoking saves money. A pack-a-day smoker, who pays $9 a pack, can expect to save more than $3,200 per year. At $10 a pack, that amounts to a saving of $3,650! As the price of cigarettes continues to rise, so will the financial rewards of quitting.

Cigarette smoking causes lung and other cancers, emphysema and heart disease. An estimated 438,000 U.S. deaths each year are caused by cigarette smoking. But smoking also affects nearly every other organ system and disease in a negative way.

The Environmental Protection Agency has listed passive cigarette smoke (also known as secondhand smoke) as a carcinogen, and The American Lung Association reports that it causes 3,400 cases of lung cancer every year.

by :healthywomen.org

Posted in: WOMEN HEALTH