For Your Health, Quit Smoking

If you're looking to improve your health, quit smoking. There are many reasons to quit smoking, health among them.

What you're about to read is the result of ongoing interaction over a long period with other smokers like you who want to stop smoking successfully. This article was written to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about reasons related to your health to quit smoking. I hope you'll find this information helpful.

Health reasons are often the number one reason people give for wanting to quit smoking – and it is certainly the best reason.  In fact, smoking can cause a wide variety of illnesses in basically every part of the body.  In addition, there are nearly 440,000 cigarette related deaths in the United States every year – more than car accidents, alcohol, AIDS, suicide, illegal drugs, and homicide combined. That's a pretty sobering statistic, isn't it?

For Your Respiratory Health, Quit Smoking!

Smoking actually causes many different types of lung diseases, such as lung cancer, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.  Emphysema and chronic bronchitis are often also experienced together and thus grouped under the term chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.  This disease is often diagnosed in both current and former smokers in their 60’s or 70’s.  COPD, which is a chronic illness, eventually results in death for anyone who suffers from it. That's a darn good reason to quit smoking, isn't it?

Separately, chronic bronchitis and emphysema are serious diseases, as well.  Chronic bronchitis is a disease that causes the airways to produce excess mucus.  This is what forces a smoker to cough more often.  Emphysema, on the other hand, slowly makes it impossible for the smoker to breath.  This is because oxygen must move across the lungs in order to reach the blood.  Tiny sacs within the lungs are responsible for making this happen.  With emphysema, these sacs break down and make it more difficult for oxygen to reach the blood.  Ultimately, the person with emphysema is unable to breathe and needs to breath with the assistance of oxygen.

More than 7 million smokers and former smokers have been diagnosed with COPD.  Those suffering from the disease have a miserable deterioration.  In the final stages, patients feel as if they are continuously gasping for breath, as if they were drowning.

For Your Circulatory System Health, Quit Smoking!

Smoking takes its toll on the heart... another great reason to quit smoking.  In fact, smokers are twice as likely to die from a heart attack as nonsmokers.  Frighteningly, smokers are also more likely to die within an hour after having a heart attack than a person who does not smoke. 

In addition, smoking leads to peripheral vascular disease, which is the narrowing of the blood vessels responsible for carrying blood to the leg and arm muscles.  Smoking is also a risk factor for heart disease, which is the number one cause of both men and women in the United States.

Women who use oral contraceptives are at particular risk for circulatory diseases.  In fact, those who use oral contraceptives and smoke and that are over age 35, are in the high risk group for heart attack and blood clots in the legs.

Sidebar: Are you finding this information on reasons to quit smoking useful? I knew the relationship between health & quit smoking efforst was signficant, and when I found very little quality information online about it, I decided to share a part of what I've learned through my research - which is how this article came to be written. Read on...