The Smoking Gun...Why you need to Put It Away!

EVERYONE knows that smoking is bad for you and affects the heart and lungs AND causes cancer. Cigarette smoking is the #1 preventable cause of premature death in the United States; accounting for more than 440,000 deaths every year in this country alone.

When you light up, a plethora of toxic chemicals enter your lungs and bloodstream. Some of these chemicals send signals to the heart to make it beat and work harder and faster. Smoking causes vessels to constrict (tighten and narrow), forcing blood to travel through a smaller area. These effects cause blood pressure to increase. Many people develop hypertension (high blood pressure) ALL of the time just due to their smoking habits. Smoking also increases LDL (low density lipoproteins), the so-called "bad" cholesterol in the body. This in turn increases the likelihood of plaques (fatty deposits) to develop on the insides of blood vessels to form atherosclerosis; "hardening of the arteries." Smoking also greatly increases the risk of blood clots (thromboses) to form and block your blood vessels. In time, these clots and fatty deposits increase the risk of, and can lead to, either a stroke (a blockage of a vessel to the brain), or a myocardial infarction (heart attack), a blocked coronary artery.

Smoking, of course, also causes emphysema, a serious lung disease that impairs breathing by clogging the bronchial airways with inflammation and mucous.

Here are just a few of the many benefits to quitting smoking:

• Your skin will look smoother and younger. Smoking wrinkles you prematurely. I can usually determine who smokes and doesn't when a patient enters my office based on their face.
• You will SMELL better! I can also identify a smoker by the smell of smoker when I enter a room.
• It will reduce the risk for heart disease by nearly 1/2 half!
• It will reduce the risk of having a blood clot and stroke.
• It will reduce your risk of developing emphysema.
• It improves your stamina for exercising and doing your normal activities. Do you want to have prongs sticking out of your nose hooked up to an oxygen tank that you have to drag around?
• It greatly improves your sense of taste AND smell.
• You will SAVE tons of money; NOW AND LATER!

Quitting smoking IS a difficult process, but it is well worth the effort. If you still smoke, please talk to your doctor about it! Their are aids to help you stop today!