Please, If You're Smoking, QUIT, If You Don't Smoke, DON'T START

Peter Jennings died of lung cancer yesterday. Dana Reeve, the widow of Christopher Reeve, a young woman in her forties, has just announced that she has lung cancer. A luminary in television journalism has been extinguished too soon, from a disease caused by years of cigarette smoking, and a young mother and widow is now waging war against a killer. That his death, and her disease, were entirely preventable makes this all the more tragic. They put a face on a disease that is the number one cause of cancer death, for men and women, in the United States.

Most smokers start smoking when they are young. Often, it starts as a desire to be nonconformist, to stand out from family and peers, to be unique. Please, if you feel the need to be a nonconformist, get a tattoo, get some decorative body piercings, find a way to express yourself in the arts, just DON’T SMOKE! Body rings can be removed. Tattoos can be lasered away. Contributing to the arts is a way to insure immortality. Smoking, due to the addictive effects of nicotine, will stay with you far longer than the need to rebel.

It is estimated that there were 170,000 new cases of lung cancer in the US in 1999 (*1). That is a staggering number, but for as bad as that is, there are other causes of smoking-related mortality that claim far more lives. If the threat of lung cancer is not enough incentive to convince smokers to stop, and nonsmoking teens to abstain, maybe these facts will be more compelling motivators (*2). Note - all of these are nicely outlined in the Surgeon General’s Report : The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General - May 27, 2004

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/smokingconsequences/

1. Cancers caused by smoking : Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in smokers, but it is not the only cancer caused by cigarette smoking. Cancers of the mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, stomach, kidney, bladder, cervix and pancreas, as well as myeloid leukemia, these are all linked to smoking.

2. Lung disease : Chronic bronchitis and emphysema (collectively known as COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) are devastating diseases caused by smoking. Pneumonia, which can be life-threatening, has also been linked to smoking. Accelerated loss of lung function from age, childhood asthma, reduced lung function in newborns - all of these are smoking-related.

3. Cardiovascular Disease : Coronary heart disease (heart attack), cerebrovascular disease (stroke), atherosclerosis, abdominal aortic aneurysm (Lucille Ball died of this), these devastating killers are linked to smoking.

4. Other diseases, such as osteoporosis, peptic ulcer disease, cataracts, hip fractures in the elderly, all are linked to smoking.

5. Fertility and Reproductive Issues : decreased fertility, fetal growth impairment, premature birth and low birth weight, also linked to smoking.

Even more discouraging is the fact that all of these diseases that afflict smokers can, and do, strike the nonsmokers who live with them.

The take home message? If you’re smoking, QUIT; If you’re not smoking, DON’T START! Smoking is not a lifestyle, it is a killer. And cancer is just one of many ways smoking claims its victims. Please don’t let it take you.

8/23/05 - I did not state or imply that Dana Reeves was a smoker. I did state she had lung cancer. 85% of the cases of lung cancer occur in smokers, 15% occur in non-smokers. Studies have shown that a large percentage of these patients have had exposure to second hand smoke. The Surgeon General's paper cited below addresses this.

References :

(*1) Oncology Channel : Lung Cancer :

http://www.oncologychannel.com/lungcancer/

(*2) The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General - May 27, 2004

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/smokingconsequences/

©2005 Kathleen M. Wooton, M.D.