Smoking It's Never Too Late to Stop - Age Page - Health Information: NIA

What Smoking DoesCigarette smoke damages your lungs and airways. Air passages swell and, over time, become filled with mucus. This can cause a cough that won't go away. Sometimes this leads to a lung disease called chronic bronchitis. If you keep smoking, normal breathing may become harder and harder as emphysema develops. In emphysema, airways become blocked as the tissue of your lungs undergoes changes that make getting enough oxygen difficult. Smoking can shorten your life. It brings an early death to more than 400,000 people in the United States each year. Lifelong smokers have a 1 in 2 chance of dying from a smoking-related disease. Smoking doesn't just cut a few months off the end of your life. It reduces the life of the average smoker by 12 years. Smoking makes millions of Americans sick by causing:

Good News About Quitting

As soon as you stop smoking, your heart and circulatory system (the arteries and veins that blood flows through) start getting better. Your chance of heart attack, stroke, and other circulatory diseases begins to drop. The flow of blood to your hands and feet gets stronger. Your breathing may be more difficult in the first few weeks, but should become easier a few months after your last cigarette. Quitting smoking can't undo permanent lung damage. It may, however, help slow further damage to the lungs. Your chance of getting cancer from smoking also begins to shrink. Within 10 to 15 years after quitting, the risk of cancer and heart disease is almost as low as that of a nonsmoker.

Nicotine Is A DrugIn cigarette smoke there are thousands of chemicals. Some are known to cause cancer. Another, nicotine, is a very addictive drug. At first, when you smoke, nicotine makes you feel good and you want to smoke more. Soon, your body starts to need more nicotine in order to feel good. Then you smoke even more to keep getting that pleasurable feeling.
The first few weeks after quitting are the hardest. Some people who give up smoking have withdrawal symptoms. You may become grumpy, hungry, or tired. You may have headaches, feel depressed, or have problems sleeping or concentrating. Some people have no withdrawal symptoms at all. You may be worried about gaining weight if you stop smoking. Many people who stop smoking gain little or no weight. Those who do gain usually add less than 10 pounds. But, even if you add a few pounds, you will be healthier than if you continued smoking.

Breaking the HabitSmoking is a strong addiction for both your body and mind. That is why it is so hard to stop. But, people do succeed. Since 1965 over 30 million Americans have quit. There is help. You can:

Cigars, Chewing Tobacco, and Snuff Are Not SaferSome people think smokeless tobacco (chewing tobacco and snuff), pipes, and cigars are safer than cigarettes. They are not. Using smokeless tobacco can cause cancer of the mouth, a pre-cancerous lesion known as oral leukoplakia, nicotine addiction, and possibly cancer of the larynx and esophagus, as well as tooth and heart problems. Pipe and cigar smokers may develop cancer of the mouth, lip, larynx, pharynx, and esophagus. Those who inhale have the same chance of lung cancer as cigarette smokers have.

If You Are Around Someone Who SmokesPassive smoking happens when a nonsmoker breathes smoke from someone else's cigarette, pipe, or cigar. It is also called secondhand smoke. We now know that such secondhand smoke is unsafe. People who don't smoke but live or work with smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer than other nonsmokers. In fact, each year an estimated 3,000 people who don't smoke die of lung cancer because of secondhand smoke. It has also been linked to heart disease in nonsmokers.
Passive smoking is very dangerous for someone with asthma, other lung conditions, or heart disease. It may cause bronchitis, pneumonia, an asthma attack, or inner ear infections in babies and young children. It may be associated with SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome). These problems are just some good reasons for a parent or grandparent to think about quitting smoking. Everyone should try not to smoke around young children or infants.

Where To Get HelpOrganizations, doctors, and clinics offering stop-smoking programs are listed in telephone books under headings such as “Smokers' Treatment and Information Centers.”
Further information can be obtained from organizations such as the following. These three organizations have many local chapters which can be found in a local telephone directory.

American Cancer Society
1599 Clifton Road, NE
Atlanta, GA 30329
800-ACS-2345
Internet website:
http://www.cancer.org/

American Heart Association
National Center
7272 Greenville Avenue
Dallas, TX 75231
800-AHA-USA1
Internet website:
http://www.amhrt.org/

American Lung Association
1740 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
800-LUNG-USA
Internet website:
http://www.lungusa.org/

Several government agencies also have information on the dangers of smoking.

Office on Smoking and HealthCenters for Disease Control and Prevention
Mail Stop K-50
4770 Buford Highway, NE
Atlanta, GA 30341-3724
800-CDC-1311
Internet website:
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco

National Cancer InstituteOffice of Cancer Communications
Bethesda, MD 20892
Cancer Information Service
800-4-CANCER
Internet website:
http://www.nci.nih.gov/

For more information on
health and aging, contact:

National Institute on Aging Information Center
P.O. Box 8057
Gaithersburg, MD 20898-8057
1-800-222-2225
1-800-224-4225 TTY
http://www.nih.gov/
U. S. Department of Health and Human Services
Public Health Service
National Institutes of Health
1999