Tag: Tobacco smoking

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Smoking Doesn’t Make You Happy

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If you think that smoking is one of the few pleasures left to you, think again. Going by a study, puffing does not make people happy.

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Researchers at Peninsula Medical School in Britain have found that smokers experience lower average levels of pleasure and life satisfaction compared with non-smokers, the ScienceDaily has reported.

According to lead researcher Dr Iain Lang, “We found no evidence to support the claim that smoking is associated with pleasure, either in people from lower socio-economic groups or in the general population.

“People may feel like they’re getting pleasure when they smoke a cigarette but in fact smokers are likely to be less happy overall — the pleasure they feel from having a smoke comes only because they’re addicted.

The researchers came to the conclusion after looking at the relationship between smoking and psychological wellbeing of a group of around 1,000 people, aged 50 or above.

They used a measure of quality of life called CASP-19 and found that smokers experienced lower average levels of pleasure and life satisfaction compared with non-smokers.

The studies for the research categorised people as never-smokers, ex-smokers and current smokers, and used household wealth as an indicator for socio-economic position.

“These results show smoking doesn’t make you happy — in fact, it is associated with poorer overall quality of life.

“Anyone thinking of giving up smoking should understand that quitting will be better for them in terms of their well-being — as well as their physical health — in the long run,” Dr Lang said.

Click to see also:->

Smokers ‘make their children ill’

Call to end child passive smoking

‘Clear smoking link’ to cot death

Timeline: Smoking and disease

Smoke ban urged for foster 

 Smokers ‘will die 10 years early’

Sources:The Times Of India

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Health Quaries

Some Medical Questions And Answers By Dr.Gita Mathai

The medicines don’t seem to work :-

Q: My father has become old and forgetful. His neurologist has started him on some very expensive tablets, but there hasn’t been much improvement. We are in a quandary as to whether the treatment is worth continuing.
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It is important to remember that medications for neurological diseases in old age may take time to act

A: Forgetfulness often occurs as people get older. In 10 per cent of them it is due to dementia. In others, it may be due to Alzheimer’s disease or caused by arteriosclerotic changes (fat deposits) in the arteries which compromise the blood supply to crucial areas of the brain. It is difficult to reverse damage that has already occurred. However, progression can be prevented by treating and controlling any underlying diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure and correcting lipid profile abnormalities. Mental exercises involving memorising, regular walking and physiotherapy are beneficial. There are also specific medications which do prevent progression and offer some improvement. These are expensive and take time to act. In the long run it may be better to follow the neurologist’s advice.

Too much gas :-

Q: I am badly constipated and when I am in public I release foul smelling gas. My stomach also feels bloated all the time. It is embarrassing and uncomfortable. I went to a gastroenterologist who said there is no block or disease.

A: Constipation in the absence of a physical block or a medical problem occurs when there is not enough roughage in the diet. Roughage is found in high fibre foods like whole grains, fruits and vegetables. The present recommendations for these are 4-5 helpings a day. In addition, fluid intake should be at least three litres a day. Milk increases the feeling of bloating and gas production. Reduce the intake of milk to 400 ml a day. Physical exercise like walking for 40 minutes a day will help the intestines function efficiently.

Immunise now:-

Q: I read about immunisation and when I questioned my mother found that she has not given me any injections after the age of one year. I am now 20 years old.

A: It is never too late to complete your immunisation schedule and make it up to date. Unfortunately, many adults feel “I did not receive all these new injections and I grew up without a problem.” This is an argument brought forth again and again. Immunisations prevent disease. Although 90 per cent of the people recover from these preventable diseases without sequelae, 10 per cent do develop problems. Some of these like paralysis, blindness, brain damage or sterility may be devastating, though not life threatening. You have probably missed MMR (measles mumps rubella), hepatitis A, hepatitis B, varicella (chicken pox), pneumococcus, menigococcus, typhoid and your boosters due at 1.5, 5 years, 10 years and 16 years.

Cold limb :-

Q: I am a heavy smoker (15 cigarettes a day) and now I feel that my left leg is cold, painful, heavy and weak.

A: The nicotine in cigarettes can compromise blood supply to the limbs. The vessels narrow and go into spasm. This is called thrombo anginitis obliterans or Berger’s disease. The limb becomes cold and numb. Eventually gangrene may set in. Please go to a vascular surgeon and check if this is the case. He may be able to release any block or bypass it. Any treatment offered will only succeed if you stop the precipitating factor — cigarettes. Remember, cigarette smoking is injurious to health.

Weaning time :-

Q: At what age can I wean my baby?

A: The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends exclusive breast feeding for six months. That doesn’t seem very practical if the mother is working as most organisations don’t give more than three months of maternity leave. Weaning can be started after 120 days (4 months). It’s best to use home-made and home-cooked powders and cereals rather than precooked readymade tinned preparations. Try to use a bowl and spoon for feeding and avoid bottles and pacifiers.

Sources:The Telegraph (Kolkata, India)

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Smokeless Tobacco Vs Cigarettes

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A new study has found that smokeless tobacco, the kind users put between cheek and gum may be almost as effective as cigarettes in delivering nicotine and carcinogens.
Smokeless tobacco, the kind users put between cheek and gum, is one way to satisfy a craving for nicotine without offensive smoke. But a new study has found that it may be almost as effective as cigarettes in delivering nicotine and carcinogens.

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Researchers tested the urine of 420 smokers and 182 users of smokeless tobacco for cotinine, a marker of nicotine exposure, and for a group of closely related powerful carcinogens called NNAL. The subjects had been recruited for smoking reduction studies, and the measurements were taken just before the studies began.

Smokeless tobacco users had, on an average, 74 per cent higher levels of NNAL in their urine than smokers, and 94 per cent higher levels of cotinine.
In animal studies, NNAL has been shown to be highly carcinogenic, causing tumours in the lung, pancreas, nasal mucosa and liver of rats. “The main message of this study is that smokeless tobacco cannot be regarded as safe, because it delivers just as much of one of the carcinogens in cigarette smoke as cigarettes do,” said Stephen S Hecht, the lead author of the study, published in the August issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, and a professor of laboratory medicine at the University of Minnesota. “While it may be safer than cigarettes, it is not nearly safe enough,” he added.

Countering suggestions that smokeless tobacco might be a less harmful alternative for people unable to give up tobacco, the researchers wrote that smokeless tobacco is very risky, and should be discouraged.

Source:The times Of India

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Health Alert

Killers in packs

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Smoking was once considered macho, high-class and sophisticated. James Bond, Fidel Castro and socialites smoked publicly and elegantly. Now smoking has sunk way down in the etiquette scale and is socially unacceptable. Smoking in public places such as offices, trains and movie theatres is banned in many countries including India.  Cigarette packets carry the warning: “Cigarette smoking is injurious to health. Yet, there is no serious effort to implement a 2004 law banning the sale of cigarettes to minors. As a result, 7-8 per cent of teenagers in India use tobacco, as cigarettes, beedis or as chewing tobacco.

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Cigarettes are made up of finely shredded tobacco leaves and stem rolled in a special kind of paper. When smoked or chewed, tobacco provides the body with a rush of nicotine and around 600 other addictive, harmful and cancerous chemicals. These produce elation and euphoria. Eventually, the intervals between “fixes” become shorter and the number of cigarettes smoked increases.

Addiction to tobacco is both genetic and environmental. A preconditioned individual reared in a conducive environment will eventually become addicted.

As the tobacco smoke enters the lungs, it paralyses the cilia. (These are small hair-like projections from cells lining the airways and are responsible for removing foreign particles.) The smoke can then settle in the interior of the lungs, causing destruction and difficulty in breathing. Attempts to clear the material are futile and result in hacking and unproductive cough. There are repeated bacterial and viral infections. Oxygenation becomes insufficient. The person may go into heart failure and become permanently breathless.

The build up of toxins can eventually lead to cancers — in the lung, urinary tract, oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, oesophagus, pancreas, stomach and blood (acute myeloid leukaemia).

In those who do not develop cancer, tobacco damages several organs. The teeth become yellow, plaque ridden, loosened from the sockets and may eventually fall. Conversation becomes difficult because of halitosis (bad breath). The bones weaken leading to early osteoporosis.

New evidence shows that the chemicals in tobacco alter the body metabolism, precipitating glucose intolerance and the changes associated with the metabolic syndrome X. Diabetes sets in, and the lipid levels are altered. Atherosclerotic plaques build up in the blood vessels, leading to heart disease, paralysis, stroke and vascular disease. The blocks in the peripheral vessels cause pain while walking and numbness, burning and tingling in the limbs.

The IQ (intelligence quotient) falls and the smoker’s cognitive skills decline faster than in non-smokers. This makes early dementia a very real possibility.

Women who smoke during pregnancy place themselves and their foetuses at great risk. They tend to have small babies. Also, there is a much higher incidence of abnormalities of the digits in the child. Fingers and toes may be more or less than normal or stuck together.

Non-smoking men and women who live in close contact with smokers suffer all the ill effects of smoking without the pleasures of addiction. Passive smokers are the single largest international group of victims of substance abuse.

More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol consumption, motor vehicle injuries, suicides and murders combined. Smoking causes diverse and silent deaths — an unpublicised form of slow suicide. The others diseases and causes of death receive far more media publicity.

Giving up smoking is not easy. As with all other addictions, it involves reconditioning of the body and the mind. Quitting has to be abrupt and overnight. There is no slow, weaning process.

Face-to-face interactive counselling on a one-is-to-one basis is very successful in motivating people to quit.

Medication to counter the urge to smoke is available in India. The sustained-release bupropion SR is a non-nicotine drug that supposedly reduces the craving by affecting the same chemical messengers in the brain that are activated by nicotine. It is expensive, the dosage has to be individualised, and it has to be taken for a prolonged period. Motivation and persistence are usually lacking in smokers, and thus the medication has not been a success in India.

Nicotine gum is available in some of the larger cities.

Most young smokers are convinced that they have the willpower to quit whenever they want to, but in reality 90 per cent are still smoking five years later. Many sincerely believe that complications will side step them and affect others!

It is never too late. Smokers who do manage to quit get a second lease of life. On average, they live longer and are healthier than those who continue the habit.

If you want to stop, grit your teeth and “just do it”.

Source:The Telegraph (Kolkata, India)

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Kids of smoking parents have more nicotine

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A new study has found that children, who have at least one smoker parent, have 5.5 times higher levels of cotinine, a byproduct of nicotine, in their urine.

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The study, published online ahead of print in Archives of Disease in Childhood, showed that having a smoker mother had the prime independent effect on cotinine in the urine – quadrupling it. Having a smoking father doubled the amount of cotinine, one of chemicals produced when the body breaks down nicotine from inhaled smoke to get rid of it.

The study was led by researchers from the University of Leicester Medical School and was done in collaboration with Warwick University.

Sleeping with parents and lower temperature rooms were also linked to increased amounts of cotinine.

Cotinine was measured in 104 urine samples taken from 12-week old infants. Seventy one of the babies had at least one parent that smoked and the parents of the other 33 were non-smokers.

“Babies affected by smoke tend to come from poorer homes, which may have smaller rooms and inadequate heating. Higher cotinine levels in colder times of year may be a reflection of the other key factors which influence exposure to passive smoking, such as poorer ventilation or a greater tendency for parents to smoke indoors in winter,” the authors said.

Sleeping with a parent is a know risk factor for cot death and the authors suggest that one reason for this could be breathing of, or contact with clothing or other objects contaminated with, smoke particles during sleep.

Nearly 40 percent of under-fives are believed to be exposed to tobacco smoke at home, and smoke may be responsible for up to 6,000 deaths per year in the US alone in young children.

“Babies and children are routinely exposed to cigarette smoking by their caretakers in their homes, without the legislative protection available to adults in public places,” the authors said.

But they admitted that there are realistic difficulties in preventing smoking in private homes because it relies on parents or caretakers being educated about the harmful effects of passive smoking on their children and then acting on that knowledge.

Source:The Times Of India

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