Cigarette Smoking Nutshelled

Here are some brief facts and notes about smoking and danger to others and why it is important to quit as soon as possible:

• It is a high importance to note that tobacco smoking poses threat not just to the smoker's health, but also his family members, coworkers and others who breathe the smoker's cigarette smoke, called secondhand smoke.
  
• Each year secondhand smoke is associated with as many as 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia among newborns to babies of eighteen months of age.
  
• Statistics say, if both parents smoke in the family, a teenager is more than twice as likely to smoke than a young person whose parents are both non-smokers. In households where only one parent smokes, young people are also more likely to start smoking.
  
• Pregnant women who smoke are more likely to bear infants whose weights are too low for good health of a child. If all women stop smoking during pregnancy, about four thousand newborns would not die each year.
  
• Secondhand smoke from a parent's cigarette increases a child's chances for middle ear problems, causes coughing and wheezing, and worsens asthma conditions.
  
• Remember, smoking is an addiction. Cigarette smoke contains nicotine, a drug that is addictive and can make it very hard, but not impossible, to quit.
  
• Actually, more than 400,000 death cases in the United States each year are from smoking-related diseases. Smoking greatly increases your risks for lung cancer and many other cancers.
  
• Ex-smokers have better health than current smokers. Ex-smokers have fewer days of illness, fewer health complaints, and less bronchitis and pneumonia than current smokers.
  
• Stopping smoking cuts the risk of lung cancer, many other cancers, heart disease, stroke, other lung diseases, and other respiratory illnesses.
  
• Stopping smoking makes a difference right away - you can taste and smell food better. This happens for men and women of all ages, even those who are older. It happens for healthy people as well as those who already have a disease or condition caused by smoking. Your breath smells better and your cough goes away. And the quality of your lifes improves significantly.
  
• Stopping smoking saves money. A pack-a-day smoker, who pays about two bucks per pack can, expect to save more than 700 bucks per year. It appears that the price of cigarettes will continue to rise in coming years, as will the financial rewards of quitting.