Tobacco-Its effect on your body- by Dr Amit Dhiman

• Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the fresh leaves of plants in genus Nicotiana. It is commercially available in dried and cured forms and is often smoked in the form of a cigar or cigarette, or in a smoking pipe, or in a water pipe or a hookah.
• All means of consuming tobacco result in the absorption of nicotine in varying amounts into the user's bloodstream, and over time the development of tolerance and dependence.
• Long term tobacco use carries significant risks of developing various cancers as well as strokes, and severe cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Significantly shorter life expectancies have been associated with tobacco smoking.
• The substantially increased risk of developing cancer as a result of tobacco usage seems to be due to the plethora of nitrosamines and other carcinogenic compounds found in tobacco and its residue as a result of anaerobic heating.
• The mechanism by which cigarette smoke cause cancer involves exposure to carcinogens and the formation of covalent bonds between the carcinogens and DNA ,thus producing DNA adducts .These adducts can cause miscoding ,resulting in permanent mutations in critical genes of somatic cells .
“About half of all tobacco-related deaths occur at ages 35-69 years, making tobacco the most important cause of premature death in developed countries”.
• Many of those who die from smoking were not particularly heavy smokers, but most of them did start smoking in their teenage years.
• Smokers in their thirties and forties have five times as many heart attacks as non-smokers. Heart attacks are the main way in which smoking kills young tobacco users. In industrialized countries, tobacco is responsible for 75-80% of all heart attack deaths in young smokers under the age of 50.
"No Smoking causes about 30% of all cancer deaths in developed countries (40-45% of male cancer deaths, and 10-15% of female cancer deaths). On average, about 90-95% of male lung cancer deaths in developed countries, and 70-75% of female lung cancer deaths, is due to smoking.”
• Lower tar cigarettes do not substantially reduce the risk of heart attack in smokers.
• If all tobacco-caused cancer deaths could be eliminated, then death rates from other causes of cancer for men and women would be similar in different industrialized countries and would have shown a stable, or even slightly declining trend over the last three or four decades.
• In 1995, WHO estimates that smoking was the cause of about 1.44 million male deaths in developed countries, and 475 000 female deaths in these countries. This represents one in four male deaths and about 10% of female deaths.
“By the end of the 20th century, cigarette smoking will have killed about 62 million people in developed countries: 52 million men, 10 million women”.
• Smoking is already causing about one-sixth of all deaths in developed countries. This proportion is still rising, mainly due to the increasing epidemic among women. If the proportion stays at or about one-sixth, then at least one-sixth of the population will eventually be killed by tobacco. This means that about 200 million out of the 1.2 billion people living in developed countries will eventually be killed by tobacco.
o People substantially underestimate the risks of smoking. In populations, where tobacco use has been common for several decades (e.g., men in the USA and the UK), tobacco is likely to be the most important risk of death in middle age.
Tobacco Facts with regarding to cancer
• Tobacco is one of the strongest cancer-causing agents. Tobacco use is associated with a number of different cancers, including lung cancer, as well as with chronic lung diseases and cardiovascular diseases.
• Cigarette smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, causing an estimated 438,000 deaths - or about 1 out of every 5 - each year.
• Lung Cancer is directly linked to cigarette smoking thus making Lung Cancer as the leading cause of Cancer death among both men and women with 90 % of lung cancer deaths among men and approximately 80 % of lung cancer deaths among women attributed to smoking.
• Smoking also increases the risk of many other types of cancer, including cancers of the throat, mouth, pancreas, kidney, bladder, and cervix. There are now 19 cancers for which strong evidence is considered that they are caused by cigarette smoking.
Tobacco Consumption and its impact in India
• India is the second largest consumer of tobacco globally, and accounts for approximately one-sixth of the world's tobacco-related deaths.
• It is estimated that around 1 million deaths a year in India are attributable to smoking.
• Global adult tobacco survey (2009-10, by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India) suggests that in India, any form of tobacco use is prevalent in 34.6% adults; 47.9% in men and 20.3% in women.
• Every year about 1.5 lakh new cases of Head & Neck cancer and 70 thousand new cases of lung cancer are reported in India (GLOBOCAN 2012); most of these are attributable to tobacco use.
How to deal with cravings and withdrawal symptoms
• Stay active: Keep yourself distracted and occupied, go for walks.
• Keep your hands/fingers busy: Squeeze balls, pencils, or paper clips are good substitutes to satisfy that need for tactile stimulation.
• Keep your mind busy: Read a book or magazine, listen to some music you love.
• Find an oral substitute: Keep other things around to pop in your mouth when you’re craving a cigarette.
• Good choices include mints, hard candy, carrot or celery sticks, gum, and sunflower seeds.
• Drink lots of water: Flushing toxins from your body withdrawal symptoms and helps cravings pass faster.
(Dr Amit Dhiman is from DMCH, Ludhiana.)