Community Corner

Stop Smoking for the New Year – Your Lungs and Your Family Will Thank You

A new year is a good time to change behaviors and give up bad habits, like smoking.

If you’re a smoker, there is nothing more important you can do for your health or your family than quitting.

Tobacco is the single greatest cause of preventable death in the United States, resulting in 443,000 deaths each year. The economic impact of smoking includes medical costs and lost productivity of $193 billion annually. The destructive and often fatal diseases caused by smoking include cardiovascular diseases leading to heart attacks and strokes; cancers of the lung, mouth, larynx, bladder and pancreas; chronic obstruction pulmonary disease (COPD); and emphysema. In the United States, about 95 percent of all emphysema cases, 85 percent of all lung cancers and one-third of all cancers are directly due to smoking.

A 2010 U.S. Surgeon General’s report on smoking makes it clear: “There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke. Any exposure to tobacco smoke – even an occasional cigarette or exposure to secondhand smoke – is harmful.”

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Among the report’s findings:

  • You don’t have to be a heavy smoker or a long-time smoker to get a smoking-related disease or have a heart attack or experience an asthma attack triggered by tobacco smoke.
  • Low levels of smoke exposure, including exposures to secondhand tobacco smoke, lead to a rapid and sharp increase in dysfunction and inflammation of the lining of the blood vessels, which are implicated in heart attacks and stroke.
  • Cigarette smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals and compounds. Hundreds are toxic and more than 70 cause cancer.
  • Chemicals in tobacco smoke interfere with the functioning of fallopian tubes, increasing risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes such as ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, and low birth weight. They also damage the DNA in sperm which might reduce fertility and harm fetal development.
  • The chemicals in tobacco smoke reach your lungs quickly every time you inhale. Your blood then carries the toxicants to every organ in your body.

As a pulmonologist, I see many smokers who are experiencing the warning signs of lung disease, such as shortness of breath, persistent cough, coughing up blood or recurring pneumonias. If you smoke or have smoked, you should be evaluated regularly. The normal lung has so much reserve, that a person can lose almost half of their lung function before getting short of breath. Smokers should be screened for lung damage even if they are not yet short of breath.

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If you have tried to quit smoking and failed, don’t be discouraged. There are many groups, programs and over-the-counter products that are now available to help you stop. Support groups can be helpful in that you’re not alone in your attempt to kick the habit. To sign up for a six-week Smoking Cessation course at Mather Hospital beginning this month, call 631-476-2723. Sponsored by the Suffolk County Tobacco Free Program, the class is free and open to the public. For other smoking cessation classes, call 631-853-4017 or visit www.suffolkcountyny.gov/health.

Make 2011 the year you quit smoking, for your health and the health of all those around you.

Dr. Daniel Baram is a board certified pulmonologist and an intensivist at Mather Hospital, caring for the most critically ill patients. He is a partner is Harbor View Medical Services, a pulmonary medical practice in Port Jefferson.

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