Ciggyfree Blog

The warning signs for esophageal cancer include :

* Hoarseness
* Difficulty swallowing
* Painful swallowing, especially when accompanied by hiccups.

Esophageal cancer is a serious form of cancer that starts in the inner layer of your esophagus, the 10-inch long tube that connects your throat and stomach. The most common symptom of esophageal cancer, usually occurring late in the disease, is difficulty swallowing and a sensation of food getting stuck in your throat or chest.

A black, hairy tongue (lingua villosa nigra) occurs when the papilla on the tongue, normally only one mm in length, grow up to 1.5 cm in length and turn black or brown, says Joachim Dissemond of the University of Essen. It occurs most regularly among men who smoke.

Buerger’s disease is a seldom seen condition that strikes mostly men aged twenty to forty. Buerger’s disease affects the arteries and veins in a person with a combination of inflammation and clots, ultimately causing impaired blood flow. This can result in tissue being destroyed, with infection and possible gangrene as a consequence.

Buerger’s disease most commonly starts in the hands and the feet and works it way to bother other parts of the body. What exactly precipitates Buerger’s disease is unknown, but everyone diagnosed with it smokes or uses some form of tobacco.

In all tests of character, when two viewpoints are pitted against one another, in the final analysis the thing that will strike you the most, is not who was right or wrong, strong or weak, wise or foolish…. but who would go to the greatest lengths in considering the other’s perspective.

Secondhand smoke (SHS) causes premature disease and death in nonsmokers, including heart disease and lung cancer.

The Surgeon General has concluded that no risk-free level of SHS exposure exists; the only way to fully protect nonsmokers is to completely eliminate smoking in indoor spaces.

Studies have determined that levels of airborne particulate matter in restaurants, bars, and other hospitality venues and levels of SHS exposure among nonsmoking hospitality employees decrease substantially and rapidly after implementation of laws that prohibit smoking in indoor workplaces and public places.

Source: JAMA. 2007;298:1392-1394.

Myth: The most harmful component of secondhand smoke is what the smoker exhales into the air — the “smoker’s exhaust fumes,” so to speak.
Truth: The smoke coming from the end of the burning cigarette contains much greater concentrations of dangerous poisons and cancer-causing substances than the smoke exhaled by the smoker.

How does smoking hurt you? (Circulation)

Narrowed and hardened arteries leading to atherosclerosis and gangrene, cold hands and feet, cold skin, decreased fitness, weakened bones,osteoporosis, peripheral vascular disease.

Smoking damages the blood vessels in the legs and arms leading to restricted circulation, ulcers, gangrene and even amputation of the limbs

Over 90% of cases of peripheral vascular disease which lead to amputation of one or both legs are caused by smoking - about 2000 amputations a year in the UK.

Source: Nosmokingday.org (UK)

Though the mustache in this picture is fake,
women who smoke at least one pack of cigarettes a day have a 50% chance of growing more facial hair. This was discovered at the Medical College of Wisconsin. It apparently has something to do with the effects of smoking on the ovaries and the production of hormones.

Sometimes changing one’s mind at its core can be experienced in a blazing
epiphany in a flash of a moment. But not often. The type of change to lose
the urge to smoke generally consists of acts not monumental, but
incremental. Bit by bit, piece by piece, those reasons can be removed from
the subconscious. Once that’s done, there is no reason left to smoke,
therefore no urge.
The difference between just stopping smoking and removing the reasons for
smoking is the difference between being a smoker living in denial and truly
being a non-smoker. The first has urges that are constantly, perpetually,
subconsciously denied. The second never has an urge because they never have
a reason creating one.
No matter how much a person says they like to smoke, I’ve never found one
who didn’t like not smoking even more.
We cannot change the past, but we can change the way we remember it, and how
those memories affect our lives today.

When the urge to smoke strikes remember the 5 D’s:

1-DELAY for three to five minutes and the urge will pass.

2-DRINK WATER to fight off cravings.

3-DO SOMETHING ELSE to fight off cravings.

4-DEEP BREATHE It will relax you. Close your eyes and take 10 slow deep breaths.

5-DISCUSS your thoughts and feelings with someone close to you or a support group.

Myth: Children aren’t affected by secondhand smoke; it’s OK to smoke in the presence of your kids so long as you don’t blow the smoke in their face and open a window. The same goes for smoking around your pregnant partner.
Truth: Exposing a child to secondhand smoke is a form of child abuse. Although secondhand smoke is dangerous to everyone who comes in contact with it, fetuses, infants, and children are at greatest risk. This is because secondhand smoke can damage developing organs, such as lungs and brain.

Smokers have more wrinkles in their skin. Smokers tend to have particularly bad wrinkles around the mouth and eyes.  Smokers in their forties have as many wrinkles as nonsmokers in their sixties do.  Smoking affects the development of wrinkles even among people in their twenties and thirties.

Photo owned by Department of Health, DH England.

For over 40 years, researchers and tobacco corporations have known that cigarettes contain radionuclides. The contamination is sourced in naturally occurring radioactive radon gas which is absorbed and trapped in apatite rock. Apatite, or phosphate rock, is mined for the purpose of formulating the phosphate portion of most chemical fertilizers. Polonium releases ionizing alpha radiation which is 20 times more harmful than either beta or gamma radiation when exposed to internal organs.

Every time you inhale smoke from a cigarette, you kill some of the air sacks in your lungs, called . These air sacks are where the oxygen that you breathe in is transferred into your blood. The alveoli will not grow back. So if you destroy them, you permanently have destroyed part of your lungs.

Smoking paralyzes the cilia that line your lungs. Cilia are little hair like structures that move back and forth to sweep particles out of your lungs. When you smoke, the cilia can not move and can not do their job. So dust, pollen, and other things that you inhale they sit in your lungs and build up. Also, there are a lot of particles in smoke that get into your lungs. Since your cilia are paralyzed because of the smoke and can not clean them out, the particles sit in your lungs and form tar.

Check out How to prevent lung disease

It began six years ago this morning, the morning that causes us all to grow silent.

~William McKenzie [Dallas Morning News]

“It appears that smokers have an altered opioid flow all the time, when compared with non-smokers, and that smoking a cigarette further alters that flow by 20 to 30 percent in regions of the brain important to emotions and craving”

Smokers enjoy their habit because it stimulates the flow of “feel good” chemicals in the brain, according to a new study involving just a handful of test subjects.

A number of studies show that smoking is related to the difficulty getting and maintaining an erection. Many toxins present in cigarettes especially carbon monoxide, can damage the circulatory system, which hinders the flow of blood in the penis which is necessary for erection.

In addition, smoking is one of the major causes of erectile dysfunction. A study published in the Journal of Urology in 2000 found out that 68% of men with high blood pressure aged 40-79 experienced erectile dysfunction. At least 45% of these cases were considered severe sexual ailments.

High blood pressure in men may lead to low testosterone levels, which is a male hormone that plays a crucial role in the sexual arousal. Low testosterone levels lead to decreased arousal and sexual performance.

Toxins found in cigarettes may also harm the testes. Smoking may affect the semen and the sperm, reducing their mobility and quality. Men who smoke tend to have lower sperm counts and malformed sperms than their non-smoking counterparts.

Pakistan is one of 146 countries that have ratified the global tobacco treaty, and in doing so has taken a great step forward in protecting the health and lives of its citizens from the tobacco epidemic.

Formally known as the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the treaty aims to reverse the tobacco epidemic by changing the way tobacco corporations operate around the world.

“In China, we are looking at something like 100,000 people dying a year from passive smoking, and about 45 percent of that will be from chronic lung disease.”

“The rest are from coronary heart disease and lung cancer.”

~K.K. Cheung, Birmingham University in Britain

A person’s increased risk of contracting disease is directly proportional to the length of time that a person continues to smoke as well as the amount smoked. However, if someone stops smoking, then these chances gradually decrease as the damage to their body is repaired. A year after quitting, the risk of contracting heart disease is half that of a continuing smoker.

~American Heart Association

“Some of the carcinogens (cancer-causing chemicals) in tobacco smoke are absorbed from the lungs and get into the blood. From the blood, they are filtered by the kidneys and concentrated in the urine.”
~Dr Visal A Khan

“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.”
~WHO

A study of 456 infants in The Netherlands showed that, by age 2 months, babies born to mothers who smoked had higher systolic blood pressures compared to those whose mothers didn’t smoke and weren’t exposed to smoke during pregnancy.

“Our findings indicate maternal smoking during pregnancy has a direct substantial impact on systolic blood pressure in early infancy and is another reason for women not to smoke during pregnancy,” said Caroline C. Geerts, lead author of the study and a doctoral student at Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care at the University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands. “This association appears to occur in utero and doesn’t appear to be due to the postnatal environment of the infant.”

~American Heart Assoc. Journal Report 7/30/2007

While cigarette companies are subtle in their approach, they have aggressive intentions. The industry spends an estimated $239 million annually for marketing in Indiana alone. They need to find replacement smokers, because their loyal customers are dying every day.

~ Our View - IndyStar
Camel No. 9 sounds pretty, but it’s not

If all pregnant women in the United States stopped smoking, stillbirths would be reduced by 11 percent and newborn deaths would be reduced by 5 percent, according to the U.S. Public Health Service. Cigarette smoking not only passes nicotine on to the growing fetus, it also prevents up to 25 percent of the oxygen from reaching the placenta. With less oxygen, the baby may grow more slowly than normal, resulting in low birth weight.

~Genesee County Health Department, Michigan

“I would be willing to have my photo put on cigarette packets. I am trying to do all I can while I am alive to persuade people to quit.”

~Maureen Hamilton

Dying ex-smoker Maureen Hamilton, is now unrecognizable from her former glamorous self, and said she would be happy for her photograph to be used on cigarette packets in a bid to try and persuade people to quit.

The 57-year-old is suffering from deadly emphysema, and is now a bedridden invalid who relies on a ventilator to breathe. She can only eat baby food and forceps have to be used to remove mucus from her airways to stop her choking.

5 Lung Cancer Symptoms Most People Don’t Know About

Shoulder or upper back pain: Pain in the shoulder or upper back is a often unnoticed lung cancer symptom. The pain results from a tumor pressing on the lining of the lungs.

Swelling of the face and neck is also a lung cancer symptom: Tumors can often put pressure of blood vessels, not allowing fluids to to travel as efficiently throughout the body. The fluids then build up, causing swelling of the face and neck.

Frequently having pneumonia or other lung infections: Tumor cells can trap bacteria causing frequent lung infections.
Frequently getting pneumonia is also a symptom of lung cancer.

Male breast development : Gynecomastia is the overdevelopment of the male breast and can be a symptom of lung cancer in men. Breast growth in men is normally due to the increase of estrogen. Lung cancer has been known to produce estrogen.

Hoarseness: Do you constantly feel like you have to clear your throat or your throat feels hoarse. This is a very common symptom of lung cancer. Lung cancer tumor cells can block passageways leading to many symtpoms, like hoarseness.

More About Lung Cancer: If you are experiencing the symptoms of lung cancer, please see your doctor. Keep in mind that these symptoms of lung cancer are also the symptoms of many other benign condition.

Source: Lisa Fayed,
Your Guide to Cancer.
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“One thing that we humans do very well is to defend ourselves psychologically, and our most potent weapon is denial. But when confronted with a terminal disease, denial flies out of the window. We have to find another defense.”

If we are smokers, and lung or throat cancer is diagnosed, denial is replaced with a sense of shame and/or guilt…For many, smoking after being told that they have a life-threatening illness is their way of saying: “I did it my way, I don’t regret it and I am still in control.”

— Professor Robert West 
Director of tobacco studies at Cancer Research UK

Smoking is detrimental for Fibromyalgia patients for several reasons. Smoking reduces blood-oxygen content and impairs the already compromised muscle oxygenation further. Nicotine is a potent muscle contractor and causes aggravation of muscle tension and spasm, leading to increased pain. Nicotine is also a stimulant and increases the mental tension, which in turn intensifies preexisting muscular tension.

~Cabell Huntington Hospital

“The evidence is clear, there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke,”

“Many countries have already taken action. I urge all countries that have not yet done so to take this immediate and important step to protect the health of all by passing laws requiring all indoor workplaces and public places to be 100% smoke-free.”

~WHO Director-General, Dr Margaret Chan

“Four million people die from tobacco related diseases yearly. This is equivalent to twenty-seven 747 airplanes full of passengers crashing every day.”

“Every eight seconds someone in the world dies from a tobacco-related disease.”

“The number of tobacco related deaths are estimated to increase to 10 million in 2030; 7 million deaths will occur in developing countries, including the African region.”

“Smokers and non-smokers are exposed to over 4,700 toxic substances in tobacco smoke and more than 50 of them are known human carcinogens, meaning cancer causing.”

~WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
Regional Office For Africa

“Cigarettes are carcinogenic cocktails, containing unknown amounts of harmful and addictive substances. Tobacco is a deadly product, period. Congress should give the FDA the authority to regulate it — and the power to protect our kids.”

The Charlotte Observer, 08/26/2007