Winter Maladies: Natural Approaches
June Russell's Health Facts
Smoking - Teens
According to government estimates, more than 3 million adolescents in the U.S. currently smoke, and every day 3,000 young people become regular smokers. The use of tobacco has an almost 50 percent chance of killing those who take up the habit - 3 times the risk of playing a round of Russian roulette. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention tells us that approximately half of all teenage boys and over a third of teenage girls now smoke either cigarettes or cigars - or chew tobacco. More than a third of teens take up smoking, and ninety percent of the new smokers are children and teenagers. These new smokers replace the smokers who quit or died prematurely from a smoking related disease.
As these children enter adulthood as smokers, they will not be perceived by society as "cool" but as social outcasts, not only because smoking has trapped them into a life of servitude - constantly having to feed their addiction - but also because of their offensive breath and body odor. Studies from the Nicotine Dependency Unit at the Mayo Clinic show that nicotine addiction can start within a few days of starting to smoke and after just a few cigarettes. Younger people must be warned that no amount of smoking is risk free, and just fooling around or experimenting with cigarettes can result in not being able to quit. The younger a person is when beginning smoking, the more likely he/she is to become a heavy smoker, and the risk of a young person smoking is 13 times higher if their best friends smoke.
Smoking is linked to a multitude of illnesses, particularly lung cancer which is the most common form of cancer in the world - and also the most deadly. Smoking causes nearly 90 percent of all lung and throat cancers, and lung cancer has surpassed breast cancer as the leading cancer killer among women. In her book, "Dying to Quit," Janet Brigham tells us that the amount of life expectancy lost with each pack of cigarettes is 28 minutes, and the years of life expectancy a typical smoker loses is 25 years. Smoking kills 1 in 10 adults worldwide.
According to the National Cancer Institute, people with the worst DNA damage were not necessarily the ones who had smoked the longest, but those who began at an early age. Smoking while the lungs are still developing appears to permanently hamper normal cell repair.
According to former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, when a young person starts to smoke or use tobacco, it is a signal, an alarm that he or she may also get involved in other risky behaviors as well. Ms. Elders suggests preventing tobacco use in the first place for this would have a big impact on also preventing or delaying a host of other destructive behaviors.
Teenagers who smoke daily have poorer general health, use more medications, and have significantly more trouble sleeping than those who do not smoke. Smoking has been linked in medical studies to more than 25 diseases. The American Journal of Public Health states that symptoms of anxiety and depression are strongly associated with teenage smoking, and smoking is the principal cause of coronary heart disease - the most common cause of death in the U.S.
Smoking adds to the hazards of surgery, reduces the effectiveness of medications - causing them to be weaker, stronger, or no good, and aggravates other existing health problems such as asthma, influenza, common cold, etc. Future generations are also affected, as there is genetic damage to the egg and the sperm when parents smoke, resulting in a much greater risk of mental and physical disorders for their children. Numerous medical studies show that smokers are more likely than nonsmokers to have: lung and other cancers, mental impairment and psychiatric disorders, fatigue, gastrointestinal disorders, hearing loss, taste impairment, serious eye problems - including cataracts, blindness and loss of field of vision, premature aging (looking as much as 8 years older than their chronological age), incontinence, blood infections, diabetes, headaches, PMS, high blood pressure, dementia and Alzheimer's, periodontal disease, severe depression, anxiety and personality disorders, difficult menopause, back pain, premature graying, thinning of the hair and baldness, sleep disorders - including severe daytime sleepiness, and even criminal behavior and risk taking. Tobacco dependence is classified as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association.
One in ten adult men in the U.S. is impotent, and teenage smokers who can't kick the habit could be impotent by the time they reach their 30's or 40's. Nicotine restricts the flow to the penis, as well as to other parts of the body, and in many cases the damage done cannot be reversed. This should also be a concern for the future wives or partners of male smokers, as women reach their sexual peak at a later age than men.
Male smokers are 7 times more likely to be impotent than nonsmokers. According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, studies showed that smokers have sex only half the times of nonsmokers, and sex was less satisfying. Increased blood flow to the penis in nightly erections is needed for males to remain sexually healthy - approximately 3 hours each night - but in smokers these nightly erections were almost non-existent.
(Massachusetts Male Aging Study)
Smoking is an enormous drain on our economy, and many feel the cost should be borne by the smokers and the tobacco companies - not all of society.
If, instead of buying a pack of cigarettes each day, a 16 year old would invest the same amount of money - earning 7 percent a year, he/she would be worth $360,265 at age 51 (allowing for average yearly price increases). At age 65 this figure would be $1,860,958 - almost $2 million! The reverse would also be true - almost $2 million wasted when an individual chooses a lifetime of smoking, and only illness and death to show for that investment.
(SmokeFree Air, Winter 1997-98)
People with the worst DNA damage weren't necessarily the ones who had smoked the longest, but those that began at an early age. Smoking while the lungs are still developing appears to permanently hamper normal cell repair. (News of Medicine, Reader’s Digest, Nov. 1999)
Ninety percent of the new smokers are children and teenagers. The new smokers replace the smoker who quit or died prematurely from a smoking related disease. (www.cancer.org/tobacco - Cancer Society)
Teenage smokers who can't kick the habit could be impotent by the time they reach their 40’s or 50’s. Smoking reduces the amount of ejaculate, it lowers sperm count, causes abnormal sperm shape and impairs sperm motility. One in ten adult men in the U.S. is impotent. Smoking not only adds to other risk factors, but compounds them. Men’s erection problems is not only a problem for them, but their wives as well, especially since they reach their sexual peak at a later age than men do. (ASH.org - July 1999)
Teenagers who smoke daily have poorer general health, use more
medications, and have significantly more trouble sleeping than those who do not
smoke, according to study of over 8,000 male and female students aged 13 to 18.
(“Smoking among teenagers leads to general health problems,” HealthCentral.com -
Reuters, June 2000)