Alcohol Metabolism

"Although most stop smoking medications seem harmless, they might be unsuitable for your physical condition."

Metabolism Tips

"In larger quantities nicotine is extremely poisonous; a person would die within minutes if you place 60g of pure nicotine on her/ his tongue."

Sulphadimidine Metabolism

"Smoking in schizophrenics appears to be linked to the unique neurobiological abnormalities of the disorder."

The Importance Of The Metabolism

"Laser therapy is also a well know quit smoking method."

Smoking Health Hazards


What's in a Cigarette?

Your body gets more than nicotine when you smoke.

There are more than 4,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke. Some of them are also in wood varnish, the insect poison DDT, arsenic, nail polish remover, and rat poison.

The ashes, tar, gases, and other poisons in cigarettes harm your body over time. They damage your heart and lungs. They also make it harder for you to taste and smell things, and fight infections.

Since 1964, 28 Surgeon General's reports on smoking and health have concluded that tobacco use is the single most avoidable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States. In 1988, the Surgeon General concluded that cigarettes and other forms of tobacco, such as cigars, pipe tobacco, and chewing tobacco, are addictive and that nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction. Nicotine provides an almost immediate "kick" because it causes a discharge of epinephrine from the adrenal cortex. This stimulates the central nervous system and endocrine glands, which causes a sudden release of glucose. Stimulation is then followed by depression and fatigue, leading the user to seek more nicotine.

Nicotine is absorbed readily from tobacco smoke in the lungs, and it does not matter whether the tobacco smoke is from cigarettes, cigars, or pipes. Nicotine also is absorbed readily when tobacco is chewed. With regular use of tobacco, levels of nicotine accumulate in the body during the day and persist overnight. Thus, daily smokers or chewers are exposed to the effects of nicotine for 24 hours each day. Adolescents who chew tobacco are more likely than nonusers to eventually become cigarette smokers.

Addiction to nicotine results in withdrawal symptoms when a person tries to stop smoking. For example, a study found that when chronic smokers were deprived of cigarettes for 24 hours, they had increased anger, hostility, and aggression, and loss of social cooperation. Persons suffering from withdrawal also take longer to regain emotional equilibrium following stress. During periods of abstinence and/or craving, smokers have shown impairment across a wide range of psychomotor and cognitive functions, such as language comprehension.

Women who smoke generally have earlier menopause. Pregnant women who smoke cigarettes run an increased risk of having stillborn or premature infants or infants with low birth weight. Children of women who smoked while pregnant have an increased risk for developing conduct disorders. National studies of mothers and daughters have also found that maternal smoking during pregnancy increased the probability that female children would smoke and would persist in smoking.

In addition to nicotine, cigarette smoke is primarily composed of a dozen gases (mainly carbon monoxide) and tar. The tar in a cigarette, which varies from about 15 mg for a regular cigarette to 7 mg in a low-tar cigarette, exposes the user to an increased risk of lung cancer, emphysema, and bronchial disorders.

The carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke increases the chance of cardiovascular diseases. The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in adults and greatly increases the risk of respiratory illnesses in children and sudden infant death.

Reduction In Nicotine Craving Predicts Ability To Quit (Medical News Today)
The stronger the reduction in nicotine craving after smoking the first cigarette in the morning, the more difficult it will be to quit smoking, according to a Yale School of Medicine study in Drug and Alcohol Dependence. In a study of 207 smokers, the researchers found significant reductions in craving, withdrawal and mood after smoking the first cigarette of the day. click link for full article
Most New Yorkers Fail Effort To Quit Smoking (The New York Sun)
Of city smokers who tried to quit last year, 80% or 500,000 smokers resumed within three months, according to a new Health Department survey. Almost half of smokers said they relapsed because of stressful situations, while 20% started smoking again during social situations when alcohol was present. The Health Department data are based on a phone survey of 2,400 smokers contacted during August ...
Yearning to quit smoking (Carroll County Online)
Some habits don't just die hard - they rise from the dead, zombie-like, again and again. And so it is with smoking, particularly mine. I fully intended this column to be about how I was winning the fight against cigarettes. Instead it's shaping up to be about my feet of clay.
Help And Resources For Arizona Smokers Looking To Quit As Smoking Ban Takes Effect (Medical News Today)
There are close to one million adult smokers in the state of Arizona (1). On May 1st, they will have an added incentive to quit as Arizona implements a statewide smoking ban that prohibits indoor smoking in public places and will require a 20-foot smoke free zone around entrances to businesses. click link for full article

Little by little this mechanism starts to function and the giving up process becomes successful.

Over the past 40 years, cigarette smoking has caused 12 million deaths, including 4 million from cancer, 6 million from cardiovascular diseases, 2 million deaths respiratory diseases, and 94,000 infant deaths related to mothers smoking during pregnancy.

In 2004, 44.5 million adults (20.9 percent) in the United States were current smokers23.4 percent of men and 18.5 percent of women. An estimated 70 percent of these smokers said they wanted to quit.

Almost 60 percent of U.S. children aged 3-11 yearsor almost 22 million childrenare exposed to secondhand smoke.

Conventional air cleaning systems can remove large particles, but not the smaller particles or the gases found in secondhand smoke.