4/13/2013

It is hard to believe that in the 21st century anyone could believe that smoking does not cause lung disease. Can there really be people out there who believe it is just a conspiracy made up by pharmaceutical companies? I'm not sure, but it is amazing how many new smokers there are, given all the mounting scientific evidence.



What is it that draws people to pick up that first cigarette and light it up, knowing they are increasing their risk of getting all sorts of diseases? There must be countless behavioral studies that detail the how and why people begin to smoke. Peer pressure, a need to fit in, curiosity, rebellion or just plain culture are probably the top reasons people begin to smoke, but that's not what will be discussed here. Rather, let's talk about the cold hard facts of lung disease.



There are two main players in the world of smoking related lung diseases: lung cancer and emphysema. The medical community tells us that 90% of all lung cancers are caused by smoking. Let that set in for a minute - 90% of all lung cancer. Obviously a smoker will have a much higher risk for this form of cancer than someone who never smoked.



With statistics like this, it is easy to see why there are over 400,000 smoking related deaths in the United States every year. That number equals 20% of all deaths in America. Avoidance is the single greatest way to reduce a person's risk for developing lung cancer. We all know what takes place when someone gets lung cancer. There's treatment with chemo or radiation, likely some kind of surgery is involved, multiple hospital stays, and this list goes on and on.



What happens when someone stops smoking, does their risk decrease for lung cancer? The answer is an emphatic "Yes". For those who have quit smoking for 10 years, the risk for developing lung cancer decreases by about 33%. At 15 years, the risk may be reduced by 80-90% according to most scientific studies. Smokers could do themselves a great favor for themselves and their loved ones, if they could stop smoking, once and for all.



The second primary lung disease is emphysema or as it is often referred to, COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). COPD is more of a class of diseases that include emphysema, chronic bronchitis and bronchiectasis. These diseases are obviously chronic, in that their symptoms progress or continue over time. They are also obstructive, which means they obstruct the flow of air out of the lungs. In other words, they can breathe in, but have difficulty breathing out.



Once the airways become so obstructed, the COPD patient then begins to have trouble breathing in as well. It's like breathing through a straw from sun up to, well, sun up. Emphysema causes the lungs' airways to become what's called reactive. This means they constrict during exhalation or breathing out. Eventually, the patient's air will get trapped in their lungs, unable to exit. This in turn, does not allow the person to breathe in very well either.



Very early on, these people will find themselves dependent upon various inhalers and as the disease progresses, eventually home oxygen. Quality of life becomes much less desirable and often times these patients become depressed, homebound and require help with the simple activities of daily living, life personal hygiene, eating, etc. Just 10 years ago, smoking related COPD accounted for 1.5 million trips to the emergency room. The cost of COPD is greater than $37 billion per year. Unlike some other diseases, there is no cure for COPD.



So why quit smoking then if there's no cure? Because COPD is a chronic disease, quitting will help slow down the progression of the disease. Once a person quits smoking, the reactivity of their airways will worsen at a slower rate than they would if they were continuing to smoke. This could mean a person only takes 1 inhaler instead of 3, or more importantly, this could be the difference between someone having the freedom to travel on their terms versus being stuck in their house because they're too short of breath to walk.



Whenever people hear this they immediately think that this must be the worst case scenario. Those doctors are just trying to paint the most grim of pictures to scare us straight. Unfortunately, these are very grim scenarios, but they are also very true and very common. There's a reason home oxygen is such a huge business; there's a reason long term care facilities are so popular. Let's say Bob and Joe are smokers and each reads this thinking it will happen to the other guy and not him. It looks like one of them is going to be disappointed, because one of them is the other guy.



There are a host of reasons to stop smoking and it's important that smokers find their own. Hopefully, this information will help give someone that extra push they've been looking for.
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