You have probably thought about it before. Maybe it was harder than you thought. There is one thing you know, it is worth it. It is worth it for yourself, your family and your friends. November 2010 may be the month to help you to take the plunge? Maybe the Great American Smokeout is for you. It's an opportunity to unite with literally millions of other smokers in saying "no thanks" to cigarettes for one day. The one day that can start you on a course of better health and lowering your risk for heart disease and many cancers.
Held once a year on the on the third Thursdays of November, the day was designed to underscore the dangers of smoking. Additionally this day delivers a challenge to smokers to cease using tobacco.
Behind the festivities of the Great American Smokeout are the often unheralded volunteers of thousands. These are the hard-working American Cancer Society volunteers who call on schools, malls and workplaces to promote the events and distribute information about abandoning cigarettes and other forms of tobacco use. They also enlist nonsmokers to "adopt" smokers for the day, supporting them with assistance and snacks. The support continues for those who determine not to return to smoking after the Great American Smokeout is over.
Why Quit Smoking?
Cigarettes have more than 4000 chemical compounds and at least 400 toxic ingredients. Here are FIVE of the most toxic.(1) Acetone - A flammable, colorless liquid used as a solvent. It's one of the active ingredients in nail polish remover. The tobacco industry refuses to say how acetone gets into cigarettes. (2) Ammonia - A colorless, pungent gas. The tobacco industry says that it adds flavor, but scientists have
discovered that ammonia helps you absorb more nicotine - keeping you hooked on smoking.(3) Arsenic - A silvery-white very poisonous chemical element. This deadly poison is used to make insecticides, and it is also used to kill gophers and rats.(4) Benzene - A flammable liquid obtained from coal tar
and used as a solvent. This cancer-causing chemical is used to make everything from pesticides to detergent to gasoline.(5) Benzoapyrene - A yellow crystalline carcinogenic hydrocarbon found in coal tar and cigarette smoke. It's one of the most potent cancer-causing chemicals in the world.
Generally individuals recognize that smoking can instigate lung cancer, but it can also initiate many other cancers and disorders.
The number of persons under the age of 70 who die from smoking-related diseases surpasses the total figure for deaths caused by breast cancer, AIDS, automobile accidents and drug addiction.
Cardiovascular disease is the main cause of death due to smoking.
Hardening of the arteries is a process that develops over years, when cholesterol and other fats deposit in the arteries, leaving them narrow, blocked or rigid. When the arteries narrow (atherosclerosis), blood clots are likely to form. Smoking accelerates the hardening and narrowing process in your arteries: it starts earlier and blood clots are two to four times more likely.
Cardiovasular disease can take many forms depending on which blood vessels are involved, and all of them are more widespread in folks who use tobacco.
Coronary thrombosis*- development of a thrombus that blocks a coronary artery, commonly causes myocardial infarction and death. Coronary thromboses commonly develop in segments of arteries with atherosclerotic lesions. Simply stated this is a blood clot in the arteries supplying the heart, which can lead to a heart attack. Over 25 per cent are triggered by smoking.
Cerebral thrombosis*-A blockage of blood flow through a vessel in the brain by a blood clot that formed in the brain itself.: the vessels to the brain can become blocked, which can lead to collapse, stroke and paralysis.
*ref. Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier.
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