Tobacco - Your Body Will Forgive You.

My daughter brought this home from school. They got it as a hand out from the Manitoba Lung Association and I thought it was pretty dang good. Hope you do too.

Now I wish I'd paid more attention to when I quit! I'm guessing it must have been about eight years now. Only seven more to survive!
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One of the exciting aspects of quitting smoking is that, in time, we can actually reduce our risk of acquiring smoking-related diseases to that of a non-smoker.

Don't ever think that it's too late to quit smoking. Remember your body will forgive you; no matter how long you've been at it.

Thirty minutes after you quit: blood pressure, heart rate and temperature of hands and feet become normal.

Eight hours after you quit: carbon monoxide and oxygen levels in the blood return to normal.

Twenty-four hours after you quit: risks for heart attack and stroke decrease significantly.

Forty-eight hours after you quit: nerve endings in our mouth and nose regrow.

Seventy-two hours after you quit: bronchial tubes relax and breathing is easier.

One week after you quit: nicotine is flushed from our bodies.

Two weeks after you quit: circulation, breathing and lung function improves.

One month after you quit: coughing, sinus congestion and shortness of breath decrease.

Two years after you quit: risks of heart attack drops to that of a person who has never smoked.

Five years after you quit: risk of stroke drops to normal, risk of lung cancer decreases by half.

Ten years after you quit: risk of most types of cancer drop to normal.

Fifteen years after you quit: your risk of dying is similar to a person who has never smoked.

Ok but now the question is how do I quit and my family survive?

Actually, I smoke a lot at work we are talking a pack a night but I can go hours upon hours at home without even thinking of a cigarette if that makes any sense? With a house full of ADD'ers, a work at home job, family, friends, etc you'd think I'd be just as likely to light up at home as at work but nope maybe its because at home I can walk away from anything for a second and plug my ears and yell "Nananananana I can't hear you" then get back to the situation at hand. Who knows I've quit before but can't seem to find the motivation.

I'm really surprised you are a smoker Futs.

I wanted to quit so badly. I don't know where the motivation can come from if it isn't obviously a good idea to quit.

I just kept quitting until it stuck one day.

I'm really surprised you are a smoker Futs.

OK forgive me but why would you be surprised?

Doug and I have talked about my going on ADD meds and trying to get a med that will help give me the boost I need to stop smoking. It was so easy to quit after smoking for two years when I was pregnant with the kids; except, for Garrett the withdrawals were so bad that my doctor actually told me not to try and stop until after my pregnancy. Trying to stop sent my body into a state of shock where I became violently ill and had massive migraines.

I've got to do something soon since my father died of lung cancer and I have two aunt's that died of breast cancer I don't think I'm doing my survival rate any favors lol. :faint:

I was surprised because you work in health care or so I've deduced. You also seem very aware of how to stay healthy and clean when flu season is in full swing. I had just never considered the idea. I didn't mean to irritate you with the comment.

Meds have made a lot of difference for me.

I've got a family history full of cancers related to smoking.
Cheers! Ian.

I'm not irritated. I've just mentioned that I smoke numerous times within the forums. Its not the best habit and it disgusts me to no end. first there's the breath issues, then the ashes not to mention the fear of a cig starting a fire. I've become very anal about my breath and making sure that I smoke outside so that I don't burn my house down and I always soak a cig when I'm done so it can't relight itself. Like I said very anal.

I quit for three years during my pregnancies with Dakota and Lexi and tried to quit when I was pregnant with Garrett but my body went into shock as my doctor called it and I became violently ill and had to start back up. Unfortunatly, its probably the greatest contributing factor to his low birth weight luckily he wasn't born with lung problems as well.

Ian you freak out over little things if my post left you to believe that I was irritated that was not my intention at all, I just wondered how you came to believe I didn't smoke because its a well known fact that those who work in health care are the last to take medical advice or to take care of themselves. *grins and rolls eyes*

I recently read (- link - (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7514)) that that's not quite the case. Apparently, smokers and obese people (or both at once) have shorter telomeres than the average lean non-smoker. Telomeres are the parts on the ends of chromosomes that lose a little fragment permanently each time a cell divides, i.e. they can be used to indicate biological age. So quitting has the advantage of no longer ageing faster, but you're stuck with a few "extra years" you've already accumulated nonetheless.




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Obesity may accelerate the ageing process

* 00:01 14 June 2005
* NewScientist.com news service
* Rowan Hooper


Obesity accelerates the ageing process even more than smoking, according to the largest ever study of the “chromosomal clock” in human cells.

Tim Spector of St Thomas’ Hospital in London, UK, measured the length of the ends of chromosomes, called telomeres, in the white blood cells of 1122 women aged 18 to 76. Each time a cell divides, its telomere loses a small chunk of DNA. When it becomes too short, cells can no longer divide. In effect, telomere shortening acts as a kind of chromosomal clock, counting down the cellular generations.

Spector found that the white blood cells of the youngest women had telomeres that were around 7500 base pairs long. Their length declined with age at an average rate of 27 base pairs per year.

When lifestyle factors were taken into account, however, dramatic differences emerged. The difference between being obese and being lean corresponds to 8.8 years of extra ageing, Spector told a press conference in London.

Intriguingly, the link between high leptin concentrations and telomere shortening was even stronger than the link with obesity, as measured by the body mass index. Leptin is an appetite-inhibiting hormone, but obese people are resistant to it and have higher than normal levels.
Fat smokers

Smoking was the other big factor. “Smokers were on average biologically older than lifetime non-smokers by 4.6 years,” Spector says. “For a heavy smoker on 20 cigarettes a day for 40 years, that equals 7.4 years of extra biological ageing.”

And there is a synergistic effect. “Fat smokers are at the highest risk of all. An obese smoker is on average at least 10 years older than a lean non-smoker,” says Spector. “It’s not just about heart disease or lung cancer, the whole chromosomal clock is going faster. That’s the public health message.”

And the effects appear to be permanent. Quitting smoking or losing weight reduces the rate of telomere loss but cannot restore them.

The damage to telomeres is probably done by free radicals. Smoking causes oxidative stress - a source of free radicals - as does obesity, says Abraham Aviv of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, US. Free radicals can cause mutations in DNA, and there is some evidence that mutations in telomeres cause larger chunks than normal to be lost during cell division.
“Telomere age difference”

But the findings do not necessarily prove that, say, obese people will die nearly nine years early. For one thing, Spector looked only at white blood cells, and it remains to be seen if obesity and smoking have as dramatic an effect on other tissues.

For another, while the link between telomere length and cell division is well established, the effect of shortened telomeres on the overall lifespan of organisms composed of trillions of cells is less clear. Men do have shorter telomeres than women, and intriguingly the “telomere age difference” of about seven years is about the same as the length of time women live longer than men.

But animal studies have failed to reveal any simple relationship between telomere length and lifespan. Some studies suggest that the rate of loss may be the most important factor, others that the crucial factor is not telomere length per se but a protein cap found on telomeres. It could even be that shortened telomeres are merely a sign of how much free radical damage cells have suffered, rather than a direct cause of ageing.

Spector now plans to look at the effect of other lifestyle factors on telomere length, such as exercise, diet and occupation.