Dont Smoke Your Life Away

Smoking these days accounts for most of the deaths in the United States of America. Tobacco companies’ products kill 36,000 people every month. That is more lives thrown away than there are people that attend a blues hockey game or about the same number of people that go to a cardinals game. These days’ people think that they cannot be affected by tobacco and it does not happen to them. The fact is when you start using any tobacco products your chances of acquiring disease increases ten fold. Tobacco has been found to kill over 20 times more people than murder does. Smoking also kills more than nine times as many people per year as car accidents. When you look at the world 4.8 million deaths occur due to smoking each year. Also another fact that most people that smoke do not realize is that they are hurting their bodies as well as those around them. Secondhand smoke contains carbon monoxide. Which is a very harmful chemical that kills a lot of people. (www.thetruth.com)

The leading cause of death dealing with tobacco users is lung cancer. There are 399 people that die every day in the United States of America due to lung cancer. Nearly 87% of all lung cancer in the United States are smoking-related. More than 50% of newly diagnosed patients with lung cancer each year are former or non-smokers. Men who smoke increase their risk of death from lung cancer by more than 22 times and women increase their risk of death by more than 12 times. With all this negative news there is good news for those who do decide to quit smoking. Risk reduction become evident within five years of abstinence from smoking. With further abstinence the risk continues to decline, although former smokers remain at higher risk than people who never smoked. Also screening is advised, early detection of lung cancer is critical to improving survival. Testing people that are known to be at high risk for developing lung cancer can help to find tumors that are small and more easily treated. Those at high risk include men and women who are 60 years of age who currently smoke or have a history of smoking, with previous lung tumors and who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

So if you have loved ones that smoke or you yourself are a smoker take this into consideration and increase your chances to live and keep those around you healthy. For more information visit (http://www.lungcancer.org).