Against smoking. WHO and World No Tobacco Day. Possible forms of events

More than a century has passed since the appearance of tobacco in our country, but if smoking was then a kind of secular ritual, now it is a way to relieve stress, a break from work, and an integral part of fun and relaxation. It is the current attitude towards cigarettes that leads to the formation of persistent nicotine addiction. It is also necessary to point out that manufacturers of modern tobacco products widely use various additives that increase the craving for smoking.

Harm of smoking

About the dangers of smoking we can talk endlessly. Now all the immediate and long-term consequences of this habit are already known:

• unpleasant odor;
• decreased taste sensitivity;
• some substances that make up cigarettes impair the absorption of a number of vitamins and minerals;
• nicotine, tar and other components of modern tobacco; are carcinogens (cause cancer not only of the lungs, but also of other organs and systems of the body);
• nicotine addiction potentiates the development gastrointestinal diseases such as gastritis, peptic ulcer, esophagitis;
• increased risk of developing atherosclerosis, stroke and heart attack;
• decreased potency and libido in general;
• During pregnancy, smoking can cause miscarriages and developmental defects in unborn children.

The severity and speed of development of each of these effects depends on the number of cigarettes smoked per day. The shorter the duration of this bad habit, the greater the chances of restoring the body and reducing the risk of long-term consequences.

Currently, an active fight against smoking is being carried out at the federal level. Laws are regularly issued, thanks to which the price of tobacco products increases, now there are motivational pictures and inscriptions on each pack of cigarettes. The last, but not final, step was the ban on smoking in public and workplaces.

All this is, of course, good, but is there any benefit? Are there other ways to stop smoking?

To a large extent, the level of nicotine addiction depends on the people themselves. The most vulnerable category are children and adolescents. It is from this age that one must instill the desire to lead healthy image life without nicotine and alcohol. Naturally, this duty, firstly, of parents, and secondly, kindergarten teachers and school teachers. You can tell the younger generation as much as you like about the dangers of smoking, but the effect will be minimal if the teachers themselves smoke. After all main reason Early nicotine addiction is the desire to appear older than you really are.

Stopping smoking should be a daily activity. You should not rush with aggression at a smoker, you can politely and tactfully enough remind that his habit causes inconvenience to others. It is especially important that employers limit the consumption of nicotine by their employees during working hours, taking into account changes in legislation.

We fight against smoking on a daily basis, using prohibitions, but we must not forget about such means as agitation for a healthy lifestyle. In addition to scare stories about nicotine and cigarettes, it is important to spread the word through the media about the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables and exercising regularly.

In custody

In order to change the world and influence society, you need to start with yourself. The best way cope with a bad habit is a change of attitude to their lifestyle, not endless questions in the search for a network: how to quit smoking? Remember that you are responsible for the condition of your body, not doctors and pharmacists. Your behavior and habits are an example for the younger generation.

- a set of measures aimed at reducing and preventing cigarette consumption. The process of smoking is the process of inhaling preparations, mainly of natural origin, in order to saturate the body with the active substances contained in them. Of course, nothing that could benefit the body of the smoker or those around him is contained in cigarettes.

Fighting smoking and nicotine addiction

According to WHO statistics, people on Earth smoke great amount people - about 1.1 billion people. This is about one third of the adult population of the planet. And if once smoking was considered fashionable, now, in the civilized world, everyone is well aware of what a problem it really is.

Scientists cite deplorable statistics: smoking kills 3.5 million people every year. That's 10 people a day.

Initially, the fight against smoking began in Europe before the advent of tobacco there. One of the members of Columbus's expedition was imprisoned because "only the devil could give a person the ability to blow smoke from his nostrils."

Later, in 1575, a ban on smoking tobacco was introduced in Spain in those places where they were being conducted. After this, smoking was treated differently in different countries.

In Russia, the smoking ban was introduced until 1685. This year, this ban was lifted in exchange for a very substantial reward for an American company selling tobacco in Russia.

In the modern world, most developed countries conduct active anti-smoking campaigns. In Russia, laws for smokers are tightened every year, and cigarette prices regularly rise.

Smoking is prohibited in educational institutions and institutions Catering, V public transport, at bus stops, stadiums, hospitals and other medical institutions. Advertising of tobacco products on television, as well as photographs, is prohibited smoking people for advertising. The sale of cigarettes to persons under the age of majority is prohibited.

The fight against smoking at the administrative level is often very effective. Because when a ban is introduced, punishable by certain material deprivations, not everyone will risk smoking a cigarette in one place or another, and then the absence of cigarettes can become a habit, this time a good one.

Test for smokers

Basic methods and methods of disposal

Many people wonder: is it possible to quit smoking forever? They ask, but do not take any steps towards this. Although it would seem that this requires very little - desire.

Those who have it, both men and women, become non-smokers forever. There are several ways to do this. You can use your choice, or you can use several at once.

Ways to combat nicotine addiction:

1. Health care. The doctor examines each specific case, helps select individual treatment, and prescribes the drugs that will be most effective in this case.
2. Nicotine patch and... This is a method for those whose smoking experience is already quite long and who simply cannot imagine themselves without a dose of nicotine. In this case, these two medications will be an excellent replacement for cigarettes - they will give a small dose of nicotine to the body every day. True, you will gradually have to wean yourself off them.
3. . The psychotherapist suggests to the patient that he no longer wants to smoke and the patient does not smoke. Naturally, the patient should not be led to the session by force, otherwise there will be no effect. Therefore, in part, hypnosis is also self-hypnosis. And to avoid a breakdown, it would be better to go to the session again and get out of the state of hypnosis.
4. Acupuncture. Or . By influencing certain points, doctors have treated more than one thousand years and more than one thousand diseases. Including bad habits. The doctor sticks needles into the right places, and the patient is cured of addiction. One to several sessions may be required. Not for those who are afraid of injections, of course.
5. Intensive operating mode. It is believed that if a person is immersed in work, then he has no time to smoke. The more work, the fewer cigarettes. And if the company where you work prohibits smoking, then the fight against the bad habit will go even faster.
6. Sports activities. Sport is a tool that helps to cope with many problems. Including defeating smoking. These two things are categorically incompatible. Moderate and regular physical activity promotes the production of pleasure hormones.
7. Allen Carr's book The easy way quit smoking." Very fashionable, which drove the whole world crazy. Quitting smoking alone is no longer so fashionable. And after reading this not too big book, it will be possible to discuss this problem on forums with quitters like you.

These are the main methods to combat smoking. There are others, but we will look at them later. This is just something you can rely on. The main thing is desire.

If you have a strong desire, you can be content with only willpower and neglect everything else, and without it, a whole range of measures will not help. Everything depends only on ourselves.

Take the smoking test

Carrying out recreational activities as one of the measures

The fight against smoking cannot be carried out without the support of government authorities. No one can be strong alone.

Our state is carrying out an extensive range of various activities aimed at directly combating it. These events are designed to warn and neutralize our enemy - substances that actively affect our brain and psyche, which are contained in cigarettes.

Possible forms of events

Here are some options for anti-smoking activities:

1. , starting from childhood, can be carried out in kindergartens, schools and other children's educational institutions.
2. Promotion of a healthy lifestyle, carried out in the form of advertising.
3. Systematic conversations with children about the dangers of smoking.
4. Development of special instructions that will indicate the dangers of smoking and how to get rid of nicotine addiction.
5. Mandatory warnings about the dangers of smoking on cigarette packs.
6. Strict compliance with laws governing the rules.

Useful video on the topic

Consequences and possible complications

There are many versions about what consequences a sudden cessation of smoking can cause. Each body reacts to giving up a bad habit differently; there is no general approach. But in any case, this condition is temporary; after a certain period of time, the symptoms disappear.

And most often the manifestations of this withdrawal syndrome are the following sensations:

1. Pain in different parts bodies and different strengths.
2. Gastrointestinal tract dysfunction, nausea, vomiting, constipation.
3. Increased or decreased appetite.
4. Decreased immunity, tendency to colds, increased body temperature.
5. Reduced performance.
6. Unreasonable mood swings.
7. Blood pressure surges.

Such symptoms can last from one week to several months. They may not come at all. It all depends on mental state person and his mood.

There is one more complication that people love to talk about and that worries everyone. This is weight gain.

There are several reasons that provoke this factor:

• slow metabolism stimulated by nicotine;
• increased appetite due to stress;
• more free time that can be spent on snacks, before this time was spent on lunch.

Quitting smoking abruptly or gradually is the choice of each person individually. For someone, a sharp rejection of cigarettes is impossible, and it will be more convenient to switch to a healthy lifestyle gradually, giving up one cigarette a day, for example.

The body gradually weaned from nicotine, and the negative effects will not be expressed so actively. But, to each his own.

It all depends on individual characteristics body and from general mood person. The craving for a cigarette can last for several more days, even weeks, especially if a person has been used to smoking for several years at the same strictly allotted time for this.

Traditional recipes to help

Since the fight against smoking has been going on since time immemorial, folk remedies on this topic have been invented in abundance. Among them there are those that are suitable for both men and women, will have an effect not only on smoking, but will also add vitamins to the body and give male power and female beauty.

Folk remedies – that’s what they are! The most effective folk remedy is considered oat decoction.

But the treatment process will not be easy. It is worth noting that this decoction quickly sours, so it must be prepared immediately before use.

To prepare you will need:

• oatmeal – 1 tbsp;
• water – 2 glasses;
• calendula (buds) – 1 tbsp.

Preparation: pour oats cold water and put in a cold place overnight, then boil for 10-15 minutes. Then calendula is added to the resulting decoction and infused for 45 minutes.

This decoction is strained and drunk when you want to drink water or smoke. Oats are effective means to combat smoking not only in the form of such a decoction, but also in the form alcohol tincture.

You need to pour two tablespoons of green oats into a glass of vodka or alcohol and let it brew for two weeks. Drink two dozen drops per 1/2 liter of water three times a day 30 minutes before meals.

100 g of fresh raspberry flowers pour 0.5 liters of vodka. This tincture should stand in the dark for 10 days, after which it should be taken 1 tablespoon 3-4 times a day.

There may be other folk methods, but the main thing is to remember how beautiful and young we will become when we stop smoking cigarettes. How the condition of our skin will change, how our smile and hair will shine. You should always strive for excellence.

Effective drugs and medicines

The most popular and effective drugs for combating nicotine addiction are listed below:

1. The most important drug that helps in the fight against smoking is the Nicorette patch. Chewing gum and a solution for inhalation are also produced under this brand, but in Russia they buy mainly plaster. It contains some nicotine. The smoker replaces the nicotine he gets from cigarettes with the nicotine he gets from the patch. Gradually the process of weaning occurs.
2. "Tabex". Produced in tablet form. They are dispensed with a doctor's prescription, but some pharmacies can sell it without it, which is extremely undesirable, since only a doctor can choose the correct dosage regimen. Available medical contraindications, and therefore self-medication is extremely undesirable.
3. "Bullfight plus" Tablets that can be purchased at a pharmacy without a doctor's prescription. A good product that belongs to the category of dietary supplements and can be used simultaneously with taking other medications. His goal is . In some cases, this goal is successfully accomplished.
4. "Nikomel". Suckable caramels. A homeopathic remedy that should be used when you feel an immediate craving for a cigarette.
5. "Zyban." One of the new drugs, but already well proven in the consumer market. This is a drug that belongs to the category of antidepressants. It calms the nerves and is considered more effective than many others. It does not contain nicotine.
6. "Lobelin." Drops or tablets. The drug can only be prescribed by a doctor who will help calculate the dose of the drug. There are some contraindications, so you should not take the drug without consulting a doctor.
7. "Cytisine." It takes the form of tablets, patches or even films that are attached to the palate. The dose is also selected individually with the doctor and is higher at the beginning of the course, gradually decreasing towards the end. Tablets give a visible effect on the fifth day of admission. The desire to smoke disappears.
8. "Nicotinelle." Chewing gums of various dosages. Of course, first of all, they are suitable for those who smoke less than a pack a day. They make quitting smoking a little easier.
9. "Gamibazin". Also chewing gum. Before using them, you should consult your doctor.
10. "Champix." Contains a substance that blocks the effects of nicotine. Having lit a cigarette, a person no longer feels pleasure; smoking becomes disgusting for this person. Also this drug alleviates withdrawal symptoms.

Cleansing the body after failure

In order to cleanse your body and recover from smoking, first of all, focus on a healthy lifestyle:

1. To maintain your respiratory system, you need to walk a lot in the fresh air, in the forest. It is necessary to frequently ventilate the rooms in which you work, live, and rest. You need to play sports in the fresh air.
2. First, you should take expectorants. Of course, you don’t need to drink pharmaceuticals; folk methods will suffice: decoctions of oregano, chamomile, coltsfoot, wormwood. Very beneficial effect Herb tea with honey and lemon.
3. The digestive system also needs restoration. For breakfast, porridges made from slimy seeds are suitable - rice, oatmeal, flax-seed. Potato decoction is good for the heart and lungs.
4. It is useful to take a multivitamin complex. It is especially worth focusing on vitamin C, retinol, vitamin B, magnesium, zinc, vitamin E, rutin.

You need to move more, exercise, sleep well and monitor your lifestyle. Then quitting smoking will not only benefit you in itself, but will also be the beginning of a new, healthy life, in which there is no place for bad habits, but only for health and beauty!

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In some countries, programs have been developed that reach a wide population, and sometimes such programs are modified to take into account the specifics of certain regions and sectors of the community. National outreach programs in selected countries, such as Japan's No-Smoking Week and the United States' Great American Smokeout, can both educate the public and help smokers quit. Massive incentive-based programs can be especially successful.

Quit and Win competitions, originally developed in Finland, have been successfully expanded to reach a wide and diverse international market. An incentive-based competition with an international super prize of US$10,000 has achieved high levels of smoking cessation. For those who want to quit smoking, the competition provides support and incentive. For contest organizers, creating a contest is an added benefit, along with a more distinct benefit of involving smokers to quit smoking.

Internationally applicable intervention programs provide a successful model for future incentive-based programs.

Held in Sweden in 1988, the first nationwide competition resulted in a 20% smoking abstinence rate after one year, indicating a successful mass outreach program.

Polish activities within the campaign "Let's quit smoking together!", held in 1992-1997, were also quite impressive. With the help of a leading Polish newspaper, television network and radio station, the Polish Public Health Promotion Coalition was able to reach a large population, between 23 and 26 million annually. The number of participants in the competition ranged from 14,000 in 1993 to 35,000 in 1995.

Thanks to the campaign's actions, smokers controlled their smoking-related behavior, attempted to quit, and successfully quit smoking. Even if a campaign only encouraged progress from precontemplation to contemplation to action, without necessarily leading to complete abstinence in the smoker, it could still be considered successful. Various incentives were used to enter the 1994 Quit and Win competition, including a trip to Rome to meet Pope John Paul II.

In 1994, 13 countries participated in the first international competition “Quit Smoking and Win”, held by the National Institute of Public Health of Finland together with WHO. The 1996 competition included 25 countries from around the world. The 1998 competition included 50 countries and, according to country reports, approximately 200,000 smokers. As a result of the 1998 Quit Smoking and Win competition, between 30 and 40 thousand smokers successfully quit smoking.

International Quit and Win competitions have proven to be effective smoking cessation interventions that are applicable to a wide range of cultures.

In addition to providing a "uniquely positive approach" to a huge global health problem, according to the chairman of the International Coordinating Committee, the Quit and Win competitions also promote broad international health collaboration in the face of the global focus of the tobacco industry. These competitions are shown to be cost-effective, positive and practical events. And although other programs have shown higher rates of successful abstinence, the successes of this competition are more cost-effective and applicable to larger populations.

On special groups Special programs may be sent. Higher levels of personalization of intervention programs may lead to greater rates of success. Personal attention can be provided in the doctor's office, where medical worker will design a specific smoking cessation program for each patient. For example, a highly successful personalized program in Sweden (in 1991) showed that physician encouragement and self-help brochures doubled smoking cessation rates among pregnant women. Another study that measured the effectiveness of various smoking cessation programs, some more individualized than others, concluded that the most individualized interventions were the most effective at all stages of the study. Personalization based on the stages of the change model involves the creation of individualized booklets with recommendations tailored to the patient's stage of change.

Most adult smokers start smoking before the age of 20. Teenagers start smoking without realizing the addictive properties of nicotine, the pharmacological agent in cigarettes. The process of smoking initiation among adolescents is divided into stages such as preparation, experimentation, regular smoking and, finally, nicotine addiction.

In many cases, the progression from a teenager's first experimental cigarette to severe nicotine addiction takes a year or less. But when a teenager realizes the extent of his dependence on nicotine, it is usually difficult to quit smoking, both physically and psychologically. Health care providers may ignore teen smoking by superficially assuming that teens are easy to quit. This assumption, however, is incorrect; Addicted teenagers are just as dependent on cigarettes as adult smokers. Additionally, the social pressures teenagers face can make quitting efforts even more difficult.

Teen smoking cessation programs are too often neglected in the name of primary prevention programs. However, prevention programs can indirectly help young smokers' efforts to quit smoking: these programs can provide knowledge about the negative effects of smoking on health and thus better persuade a teenager to quit smoking. If the prevention program fails, smoking cessation programs are needed that can be used for addicted adolescents.

Adolescents can also be reached indirectly by influencing their parents and role models. Children are three times more likely to smoke if their parents smoke; Therefore, by helping parents quit smoking, we can not only prevent children from starting to smoke, but also help teens quit smoking.

Early cessation of smoking is essential to restore a smoker's good health, although there are still minor health risks. Targeting smoking cessation efforts at adolescents is a natural first step in comprehensive smoking cessation efforts. To reach adolescents, smoking cessation materials and information for appropriate age groups must be available. To date, there has been little action to stop smoking among teenagers, an area that requires more attention.

Numerous studies have unequivocally established that smoking during pregnancy has a negative impact on the health of both mother and child. Maternal smoking is also associated with medical complications such as placental abruption, placenta previa, bleeding during pregnancy, premature and prolonged rupture of membranes, and preterm birth. In addition, maternal smoking slows fetal growth, leading to an average loss of 200 grams in birth weight and doubling the risk of having a low-weight baby.

Studies have found higher rates of fetal and infant mortality in mothers who smoke. Smoking has been shown to be an independent risk factor for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Smoking appears to be the most impactful cause of negative pregnancy outcomes in the European Union and the United States.

After pregnancy, continued parental smoking in the presence of infants and children can lead to negative health consequences of secondhand smoke, such as increased levels of respiratory infections and middle ear diseases.

Smoking cessation by pregnant women improves fetal growth and infant health by leading to higher birth weight babies and a reduced risk of asthma, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and respiratory infections. A US study found that smoking cessation programs for pregnant women had significant benefits: for every dollar spent, savings of $3 were realized, and women in the program group were 2.5 times more likely to quit smoking than women in the non-pregnant group. , where such a program was not carried out.

To reduce the risk of a negative pregnancy outcome, general preventive actions Smoking cessation programs specifically targeting pregnant women should be strengthened to meet their specific psychosocial and socioeconomic needs. Pregnant women should be informed about the risks of smoking during pregnancy to the health of both mother and baby. A pregnant woman's partner should be actively involved in supporting her smoking cessation efforts. If this partner smokes, they should also be included in the smoking cessation process.

Smoking cessation efforts should not only target pregnant women exclusively, but also mothers of newborns. Factors such as stress, postpartum depression and anxiety can trigger a postpartum woman to start smoking again, especially after the external motivator (the baby in the womb) has been removed. Research shows that relapse rates among mothers who quit smoking during pregnancy can be as high as 80%. Doctors should be very alert to this danger of relapse and should prepare personalized smoking cessation programs to enable a woman to quit smoking permanently.

It is necessary to create an environment that will encourage more people decide to quit smoking, do so successfully, and remain nonsmokers.

A successful global smoking cessation program requires a multi-pronged approach. Health education, public policy, and information programs are important components in a comprehensive smoking cessation process.

Health education through the media, schools, health professionals, while actively promoting smoking prevention activities, will also encourage smoking cessation activities.

Motivation to quit smoking is a critical component of any smoking cessation attempt, and educators, health professionals, and family members have the opportunity to encourage this motivation. Although motivation is not always enough to overcome nicotine addiction, pharmacological methods such as nicotine replacement therapy and other non-nicotine therapies can also be used to give the smoker every possible means of successfully completing the quit attempt.

These pharmacological therapies should be well known to health care professionals and should be readily available to a chronic smoker in need of physical assistance.

Health and education professionals should not remain the only components of smoking cessation efforts; smokers wishing to quit should be influenced at multiple levels, which provide multiple opportunities for success.

Legislation requiring higher prices for cigarettes, reimbursement for drugs to treat nicotine addiction, more high level involvement medical personnel, positive media messages about healthy lifestyles, social support for healthy lifestyles, and mass smoking cessation programs such as “Quit and Win” contests, taken together, can not only encourage smokers to want to quit, but also provide necessary funds to successfully complete the attempt.

Globally comprehensive political measures and tobacco control programs that target both smoking prevention and cessation can help curb the growth of the current tobacco epidemic.

The vast majority of smokers who have quit or are considering quitting will primarily use self-guided programs. Light smokers, those who are highly motivated to quit, or those who have limited access to medical or behavioral smoking cessation programs can be successful in their smoking cessation efforts if they use an appropriately individualized, self-administered smoking cessation program.

So how do I quit smoking? How do I choose a strategy that works for me?

Every person who quits smoking needs a strategy that works for them. According to a recent UK study, 69% of adult smokers would like to quit. Nicotine is highly addictive and therefore quitting smoking will not be easy, even for a highly motivated person.

It is known that initial attempts to quit smoking are often unsuccessful, so a person who decides to quit smoking should be prepared for several attempts. These cyclical smoking cessation activities should not be neglected in the name of primary or initial interventions. People must try different techniques to find the right one, with the understanding that three or four attempts may occur before a successful program is found. It should be made clear to every quitter that one failure does not mean the program has failed, but rather a short delay during which an ultimately successful program can be found.

The stages of change model becomes useful for those smokers who are not yet clearly motivated to try a smoking cessation program. This model, which extends from precontemplation to contemplation, preparation and finally action, covers a wide range of smokers' attitudes.

Health professionals, as well as those involved in health education, legislation and social support, should encourage the transition from one stage to the next. Even if the intervention does not lead to successful smoking cessation, the smoker can at least move from the precontemplation stage to the contemplation stage. With the following intervention, the smoker can advance to the preparation stage, and ultimately to action and successful smoking cessation.

This progression model reflects the average cyclical quit attempt: multiple attempts with lessons learned at each step, and each step building up to the ultimate goal of quitting smoking. Health care professionals can take advantage of this promotion model: in the precontemplation stage, smokers need motivation, in the contemplation stage, they need information, and in the preparation and action stages, smokers need to build a program and schedule for quitting smoking. Health care providers should be aware of these stages and should be prepared to first preparatory actions, to bring the smoker to the action stage and then help the smoker successfully progress through the smoking cessation program.

Smoking cessation programs are often expensive and inaccessible to most of the population. Therefore, health care providers, family and friends are a support mechanism for most people who want to quit smoking. The typical program that a health professional might recommend does not require outside resources or materials, it simply requires conviction on the part of the smoker and his family and friends. The strategy is as follows:

Committing to quit smoking: Explore and identify specific motives and desires for quitting smoking.

Talk to your doctor and discuss medical supplies and strategies to combat the urge to smoke again, increasing your chances of success.

Choose a quit date without trying to gradually reduce smoking; complete abstinence from the day you quit smoking.

Get rid of all tobacco-related items and clean all your belongings and car in advance of your quit day; immediately stop smoking in the house and in the car; do not go to places where there is a high probability of smoking.

Don't worry about dieting until smoking cessation is successfully completed.

Enlist the help of coworkers, friends, and family members to encourage quitting efforts and help you remain nonsmokers.

If you are a parent, think about the example that will be set for your children.

Learn how to avoid or cope with situations or behaviors that may make you want to smoke.

A combination of smoking cessation actions may be most effective. Behavioral therapy is often unable to help stop smoking on its own; Often nicotine replacement or non-nicotine pharmacological therapy will more effectively help the smoker.

Since a smoker is addicted to nicotine in cigarettes, a replacement form of this substance, administered through a tablet, patch or chewing gum, satisfies the smoker's need for nicotine. It was shown that nicotine replacement therapy was twice as successful compared to those attempts that occurred without it.

For many people who quit smoking, nicotine replacement therapy relieves withdrawal symptoms and serves as both a psychological and physical aid in the smoking cessation process. Non-nicotine pharmacological therapy, such as bupropion, works differently from nicotine replacement and has also been shown to double the chance of successfully completing a quit attempt. Behavioral therapy can help smokers cope with social and psychological motivation to smoking.

A person trying to quit smoking should be aware of the likely withdrawal symptoms before making the attempt: irritability, intolerance, hostility, anxiety, depressed mood, difficulty concentrating, insomnia, impatience, as well as increased appetite and weight gain. Often, physical withdrawal symptoms are the result of abrupt nicotine withdrawal.

In such cases, the use of nicotine replacement therapy or other medical effects. Weight gain is a common concern for those who would like to quit smoking, especially among women. Although smokers should be warned about the possibility and high probability weight gain, the average weight gain of only 2-3 kg poses a negligible health risk compared to the health risks of smoking. A special diet should not be considered until a person has achieved successful smoking cessation, otherwise the risk of relapse increases.

A person attempting a smoking cessation program should receive assistance from a supportive social and family environment, as well as support and self-help materials from health care professionals. Success is within reach: Over the past three years, more than 100,000 people in Hong Kong have successfully quit smoking. The smoker should be aware that although quitting smoking is a difficult process, millions of smokers have successfully quit smoking.

Beyond public health, tobacco consumption is a major waste of global financial resources. It has been identified as a significant threat to sustainable and equitable development. The World Bank's study, The Economic Costs and Benefits of Investing in Tobacco, estimated the medical costs associated with smoking-related diseases and found a global net loss of $200 billion per year, with half of that amount occurring in developing countries.

The same study shows that smoking prevention is one of the most cost-effective public health interventions, as scientific evidence shows that tobacco is rapidly becoming more common cause mortality and disability than any other single disease.

It follows that smoking cessation interventions that reduce health risks, like smoking prevention, are also cost-effective. A UK research report shows that smoking cessation actions are among the most effective public health interventions (between £107 and £3,662 per year of human life saved).

A recent study in Hong Kong found that exposure to tobacco smoke in children from birth to age twelve years incurs excess costs ranging from US$338,042 to US$991,591. Research shows that smokers cause significant costs to their employers through increased absences from work, higher insurance premiums, decreased productivity, higher facility maintenance costs, and smokers exhaling smoke onto non-smokers. colleagues. Research shows that limiting smoking at work limits cigarette consumption, which can be a significant step toward quitting smoking.

People who quit smoking realize significant monetary savings from cigarettes not purchased and lower health care costs. For example, a Korean could save $285 per year by no longer buying cigarettes, while a Norwegian could save $1,982. From another point of view, a Korean has for other purposes an additional salary for 39 hours of work, and a Norwegian will receive the same salary for 95 hours of work. Smoking cessation programs are highly cost-effective, with costs of less than US$5000 per life-year gained. In contrast, treatments for high cholesterol can cost between $20,000 and $520,000 per year of life saved. In other words, spending $1 million on health care can save 200 years of life or 2 years of life, depending on how you spend it.

Quitting smoking reduces the health risks associated with tobacco use, resulting in health benefits for both the individual and society. Interventions to stop smoking can reduce the burden of diseases such as cardiovascular, pulmonary, respiratory and cancer diseases. Individuals can directly benefit from their decision to quit smoking.

Those who quit smoking between ages 30 and 35 avoid almost all of the risk of premature death from smoking, but even those who quit at age 60 or older have clear health benefits, including living longer. The specific health benefits of smoking cessation vary for various diseases. Smokers' risk of getting lung cancer is related to how much they smoked and especially how long they were smokers. The risk they face from 20 years of smoking is not very great, but it increases exponentially with each additional year above that level.

Smoking cessation stabilizes but cannot reduce the cumulative risk of lung cancer to the level of those who have never smoked, but since the risk would then increase rapidly if smoking had not been stopped, there is a significant reduction in risk in former smokers compared with those who have not smoked. who continues to smoke. In the case of cardiovascular disease, the benefits occur more quickly, so the likelihood heart attack decreases after just one day of quitting smoking.

One year after quitting smoking, the excess risk is half that of a smoker, and after fifteen years, the risk of coronary heart disease is almost equal to that of nonsmokers. It doesn't matter how much a person has smoked or how much their health has deteriorated - stopping smoking will reduce all types of health risks associated with smoking.

Not only the smoker himself, but also the people around him can suffer from tobacco smoke. Inhalation of smoke emitted by others has been shown to cause sudden death in infants, respiratory and middle ear diseases in infants and children, and lung cancer and heart disease in adults.

Children are at additional risk because their parents' smoking increases the likelihood that they themselves will eventually start smoking.

The individual benefits of quitting smoking include improved health, a better sense of taste in food, an improved sense of smell, saving money, increased self-esteem, and cleaner breath, home and car odors. Several weeks after quitting smoking, a person typically experiences lower levels of perceived stress. People who quit smoking can set a good example for their children, have healthier babies and children, not worry about exposing others to tobacco smoke, feel better physically, and achieve freedom from addiction.

The purpose of World No Tobacco Day is to focus on the health consequences of smoking and the health benefits of quitting smoking. Every country needs to take as many actions as possible to mobilize public awareness, interest and action. Examples of such actions are:

National and local campaigns to raise awareness of the extent of the problems caused by smoking. For example, television and press coverage of scientific research on the prevalence of smoking and its impact on health in each country.

“Quit Smoking and Win” competitions that encourage mass participation in attempts to quit smoking:

1. Media coverage of individual smokers and the strategies that helped them successfully quit smoking.

2. Influence professional bodies representing health professionals (e.g. doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists) to include smoking cessation as part of their activities important question within their professional area of ​​competence.

3. Influence government and other health care providers to give higher priority to the development of smoking cessation services.

4. Form alliances with pharmaceutical companies that sell effective smoking cessation products to increase public awareness and involvement in smoking cessation efforts.

A large number of visible actions, both nationally and locally, will be an indicator of the day's success, but the underlying goal is to increase support for smoking cessation actions throughout the year in order to make a real difference in cessation rates smoking in the country.

Why is it so important to be smoke-free?

There can be many answers to this question, and for each person there is some kind of answer that is different from the answers of other people.

One answer is that smoking is unfree, just as consuming any addictive substance, whether legal or illegal, is unfree.

The nicotine contained in tobacco is a drug in the same way that heroin or cocaine can be considered drugs. And discussions about the right of a smoker to decide for himself whether to smoke or not to smoke are just as valid as discussions about the right of a heroin addict to decide whether to take heroin. Freedom here is usually limited only by the choice of whether to sell something of your own or something that needs to be stolen from someone else to purchase the next dose of the drug.

Another answer about the reasons for the need to become smoke-free may be that smoking is self-deception. Most smokers claim that a cigarette allows them to feel pleasure or invigorate and concentrate. But the problem is that the cigarette does not allow the smoker to get pleasure where there is reason for it, or concentrate where there is a need for it.

Indeed, nicotine entering the brain activates a complex system of nerve cell receptors, which normally should respond to natural substances produced in the body, in particular acetylcholine. And the activation of these receptors leads to a whole cascade of excitation waves in the brain, as a result of which more and more new brain structures are activated and more and more new portions of biologically active substances are formed.

Such substances include, for example, dopamine, a substance that is a biochemical expression of feelings of pleasure and joy. Another important substance for the body - norepinephrine - is also actively produced under the influence of a portion of nicotine and leads to the mobilization of the body to perform work, both mental and physical.

But to produce the same dopamine and norepinephrine, nicotine forces the body to consume the substances necessary for their synthesis. When objective conditions appear for joy or for mobilizing the body, these states do not arise, firstly, because there is no longer any building material for the synthesis of necessary substances, and secondly, because the entire system has lost the ability to respond to natural stimuli. Therefore, a smoker should think about whether he needs to deceive his body and experience artificial feelings.

The smoker’s self-deception also lies in the fact that the person refuses the natural developmental role of discomfort. Seems paradoxical? Here's the thing. Every person has a lot of natural needs. If any of them is blocked or not satisfied, the person experiences discomfort and strives to eliminate it. This traditionally happens in one of two ways.

Either we change the environment around us in order to create conditions for the satisfaction of our needs, or we change ourselves in order to perceive these needs differently. And in this there is a great source of development, just as laziness is the engine of progress. While experiencing discomfort, we become aware of our needs, learn to find ways to satisfy them, and improve ourselves.

What happens to a smoker (and with him to any addicted person, no matter what he is dependent on - drugs, alcohol, food)? When experiencing discomfort, a dependent person “knows” what he is missing. A smoker takes out a cigarette, an alcoholic pours himself another glass or buys a bottle, a person suffering from a painful addiction to food simply puts another portion of his favorite food on his plate. As a result, each of these people deprives themselves of the opportunity to understand what caused the discomfort and learn something new about themselves and the world around them.

Another answer is that continuing to smoke is a manifestation of self-dislike. No matter how many people claim that smokers love themselves, this thesis still has a rather limited scope. The smoker does not want to deny himself momentary pleasure. This is true. But taking care of yourself, by and large, for a smoker still means freeing yourself from smoking. And this self-care can have different aspects.

For example, self-love, expressed in concern for material well-being. Simple calculations lead to the conclusion that a smoker who consumes about a pack of cigarettes a day, having given up this expense item for one year, can instead afford a mobile phone with a connection fee for several months, or some new item of clothing depending on his prices almost every month, or something like a hundred CDs or video cassettes, or a liter of fruit juice a day. These comparisons are usually impressive, but are of course best done on your own, based on individual smoking intensity and the cost of the most commonly used cigarettes.

Self-love can also have a purely physical aspect, such as taking care of your own health.

I mention this argument last because for most young smokers it does not seem important. However, I find it difficult to name an organ system in the human body that would not suffer from tobacco smoke.

The skin, which we can evaluate first, thins, ages, and wrinkles in smokers noticeably faster than in their non-smoking peers. Hair, nails change color, smell and other qualities.

Respiratory system. No one doubts that she is exposed to tobacco smoke first and to the greatest extent, including the most convinced supporters of smoking. The consequences here include bronchitis and lung tumors in smokers themselves, as well as a variety of respiratory diseases in their children and loved ones, including underdevelopment of the lungs in premature infants of smoking mothers.

The cardiovascular system. It is less often thought about in connection with smoking. However, the blood vessels of smokers are covered from the inside with a coating, which is colorfully demonstrated in modern television advertising of anti-atherogenic drugs. And depending on where this plaque makes itself felt faster, the smoker may have problems with the blood supply to the heart muscle (myocardial infarction), brain (stroke), limbs, penis (impotence) and so on. In addition, in the process of the very mobilization of the body that has already been discussed, nicotine can contribute to the narrowing of blood vessels and increased heart rate, which in themselves may not be noticeable, but in the presence of altered blood vessels, this can lead to undesirable consequences.

The gastrointestinal tract often suffers unnoticed by the smoker himself, but very clearly. Nicotine, acting on receptors not only in the brain, changes the functioning of almost the entire autonomic system. nervous system, and, consequently, all the organs controlled by it. Therefore, under the influence of nicotine, the secretion of some digestive glands increases and the secretion of others decreases, motor function changes different departments gastrointestinal tract.

All this may not be entirely clear, but as a result, smokers are more likely to develop peptic ulcers and have a harder time achieving remission from them. If we add to all these effects of nicotine the fact that the smoker ingests tars that rise into the pharynx and oral cavity from the respiratory tract, then the picture of the condition digestive system becomes even more unsightly.

Excretory system. The effects of smoking are associated, among other things, with very specific forms bladder cancer, not to mention the fact that many components of tobacco smoke that enter the body are excreted from the body in the urine and have their effect along the way harmful effects.

This list can be continued, but it is probably better to refer the interested reader to specialized publications. But perhaps a helpful final touch would be to mention what smoking does to a person’s genital area. As it has recently become common to say, it limits the ability to experience “happiness in love.”

That is, smoking calls into question not only self-love, but also love in general. Significant loss.

So, what should those who no longer want to deceive themselves, but want to feel free, take care of themselves and love, do? The answer is simple - such a smoker can be asked to quit smoking.

The result of a study conducted by a team of Japanese scientists is the firm belief that smoking accelerates skin aging and increases the number of wrinkles. Substances contained in tobacco smoke increase the synthesis of enzymes that destroy collagen, the main component of healthy skin.

During the experiment, the physiological solution in which the skin cells were located was saturated with tobacco smoke, as a result of which the activity of enzymes that destroy collagen noticeably increased. In addition, the synthesis of “fresh” collagen fibers decreased by approximately 40 percent. According to the study leader, the combination of these factors leads to premature skin aging in smokers. And the intensity of aging depends on the number of cigarettes smoked.

Currently, the scientists’ conclusions are based on a laboratory “model” of human skin - individual cells - but in the near future it is planned to compare skin samples from smokers - both men and women - who are not exposed to this bad habit and from different types of smokers. age groups. According to the authors of the study, the results will help convince young people not to start smoking, because appearance for them it is often more important than the condition of the internal organs.

Among smokers, diseases such as atherosclerosis, hypertension, gastritis and many others are more common. For diseases such as peptic ulcer, thrombophlebitis, myocardial infarction, recovery without quitting smoking is impossible!

Stomach and duodenal ulcers occur; moreover, in the case of an ulcer, there is a danger fatal outcome higher in smokers than in non-smoking patients. There is evidence that smoking can cause cell damage and changes in the status of the immune system, increasing the risk of developing leukemia.

Smoking is more common among men than among women, although more and more young women smoke in Moscow. Among men aged 30 to 34 years, 72% are smokers, and 59.8% of males over 15 years of age smoke. For females over 15 years of age, this figure is 9.1%.

If you smoke and haven’t even thought about what smoking does to your body, then nothing will help you. In the best case scenario, you will live 10-15 years less than you could. And you will be terribly lucky if you die suddenly of a heart attack, and not in terrible agony from lung cancer.

As a result of studies conducted over 2 years and covering 65 thousand people, Norwegian scientists came to the conclusion that smoking causes more harm to women than men. The Norwegians did not give an exact explanation for this fact, but they believe that the reason is the smaller size of the woman’s lungs. With the same number of cigarettes smoked, the concentration of harmful substances in a woman’s lungs is higher due to their smaller volume. The risk of bronchopulmonary diseases and asthma for women who smoke is 2 times higher than for non-smokers.

Healthy teeth can last a person a lifetime. Many smokers have poor dental health because smoking has many negative consequences, such as bad breath, dark plaque on the teeth, and decreased sense of taste and smell.

Smoking cigarettes leads to dehydration of the tissues of the palate and cheeks, causes recession (decrease in level) of the gums and the formation of a sticky film on the teeth, which helps to fix plaque and the rapid development of caries.

In addition, smokers are most susceptible to developing oncological diseases. Studies have shown that lip and oral cavity cancer develops four times more often in smokers than in non-smokers.

If you think that only an oncologist can diagnose cancer, then you are mistaken. In each dental clinic A study may be conducted to determine the presence of cancer. The dentist can evaluate the condition of your teeth and gums and give necessary recommendations.

Smoking plays an important role in the etiology of bladder cancer. Since the discovery of carcinogenic amines in tobacco smoke, the study of the effect of smoking on carcinogenesis in the bladder has been very intensive throughout the world.

An analysis of epidemiological studies conducted abroad shows that in countries classified as “historically smoking” (for example, the USA, England, Poland), 50% of cases of bladder cancer (bladder cancer) in men and 25% of cases in women are attributed to the influence of smoking. Population attributable risk assessments conducted in other European countries, led to the conclusion that 50% of all bladder cancer cases in Italy and 61% in Canada are also caused by smoking.

Since smoking is one of the main risk factors for this form of cancer, it seems relevant to determine some quantitative indicators of its influence on the risk of the disease in the domestic population in order to operate with them in the process of anti-cancer propaganda and organization of cancer prevention.

The study included 232 individuals of both sexes aged from 30 to 85 years: 116 patients and 116 control individuals, of which 168 were men and 64 were women. All cases were patients with an established and histologically verified diagnosis of bladder cancer for the first time in their lives, who underwent an outpatient examination at a dispensary. There were no distant metastases in the patients.

I approached every patient individual control taking into account a number of parameters: gender, age (± 2 years), time of residence in Moscow and place of residence. Controls were selected in different clinics of the city on a territorial basis - control persons lived in the same microdistrict and were served by the same clinic as the patients (the so-called “neighborhood” control).

Persons who went to the clinic for acute respiratory infections, fluorographic examination, and were registered at a dispensary for non-oncological diseases were taken as controls. Persons with urological complaints and corresponding pathology were not included in the study.

Since the collection of epidemiological data involved questioning “cases” and “controls,” the study was organized in such a way that the interviewing procedure for both took place in identical conditions, namely, in separate rooms of city clinics. Both experienced and control persons were interviewed using a uniform methodology using a special questionnaire.

When analyzing data on smoking, the relative risk for smokers compared with never smokers was 4.2, and for ever smokers it was 3.5.

Assessment of smoking intensity showed a linear increase in risk - from 2.27 for persons smoking less than 14 cigarettes per day, to 3.46 for persons smoking 14-29 cigarettes and to 4.94 for persons smoking more than 30 cigarettes per day . However, the trend for this variable was statistically insignificant (p = 0.067).

An assessment of the types of tobacco products used by Muscovites and classified according to the degree of carcinogenicity and nicotine and tar content revealed the highest risk of disease (7.43) for cigarette smokers (the main varieties are “Belomor”, “Kazbek” and “Sever”). For those who use filter cigarettes, the risk was low compared to the previous indicator, but twofold increased compared to the baseline (2.13).

The use of shag and non-filter cigarettes occupies an intermediate position, the risk indicators for which are higher than when smoking cigarettes with a filter, but significantly lower than those caused by smoking cigarettes.

Variables reflecting the duration of smoking and the time elapsed since smoking cessation turned out to be statistically significant. Analysis of smoking duration showed that the relative risk, being 6 times greater than for non-smokers, for the extreme periods of the smoking duration studied (5.91 and 5.96, respectively), in the intermediate time interval (from 20 to 39 years) was 3 times smaller, amounting to 1.92.

Quitting smoking statistically significantly reduced the risk of bladder cancer, which for those who quit smoking 10 years ago approached the risk for non-smokers.

When analyzing the variable reflecting the age at which smoking began, the highest risk (5.18) was observed for those who started smoking in the age range from 17 to 21 years. For those who started smoking before 17 years of age and after 22 years of age, the indicators were close in value - 3.6 and 3.2.

Analysis of the interaction between duration and intensity as a result of the adjustment of the two named variables did not reveal significant changes in the relative risk indicators of the variables under consideration.

The data are generally consistent with those obtained by epidemiologists from different countries and confirm the leading role of smoking in the etiology of bladder cancer.

The high relative risks associated with past and present smoking, as well as statistically significant trends in relation to smoking duration, support the significance of these variables in a number of case-control studies and suggest a clear dose-effect relationship.

In addition, when smoking starts at a younger age (before 22 years), there is a tendency to increase the risk of the disease, while those who quit smoking experience a significant reduction in risk after smoking cessation, which after 10 years or more can become comparable to the risk for never smokers . This situation also occurred in the work of Italian epidemiologists, carried out on the population of Milan, although a reduction in risk to the level of non-smokers was discovered later, 15 years after stopping smoking. American epidemiologists found a 50% reduction in risk among residents of Northern California who quit smoking more than 16 years ago compared to those who continued to smoke.

These studies are quantitatively consistent with most prospective and case-control studies, which have shown a three-fold or greater increase in the relative risk of bladder cancer in smokers. However, the dose-response relationship, although consistent with the pattern reported in most studies from the United States or Northern Europe, is weaker than that obtained in the work of Italian epidemiologists based on hospital cases and controls. In the mentioned work, the relative risk for persons who smoke 30 or more cigarettes per day was about 10. It is less pronounced in comparison with the data of French epidemiologists, where the relative risk indicators for smokers are at the level of 5, and for “heavy” smokers - around 7.

One of the explanations for the greater likelihood of the population of the mentioned countries to develop bladder cancer may be the more pronounced carcinogenicity of dark tobacco (compared to light), which is preferred in Italy and France. The relative risk for smokers of dark tobacco is 40% higher than for those who prefer light tobacco.

Apparently, smoking dark tobacco in the above-mentioned countries is the same national tradition as smoking cigarettes in Russia, which is associated with the highest risk obtained in the study. As noted above, this risk is associated with certain types of cigarettes produced before the war, during it and some time after. Therefore, high risk indicators were obtained due to the use of cigarettes by people in the oldest age groups (75-79 and 80 and older years), who were unable to adapt to new ways of life and switch to modern cigarettes. Those who smoke shag also belong to the same age groups.

The risk of disease when smoking unfiltered cigarettes is twice as high as when smoking filtered cigarettes.

To summarize, we can conclude that smoking is the most important risk factor for bladder cancer in the Moscow population, and the risk of the disease increases significantly with the number of cigarettes smoked per day and the duration of smoking. The risk is increased for those who start smoking at a young age. The highest risk rates are observed in those who smoked cigarettes compared to those who smoked other types of tobacco products. Those who smoke filtered cigarettes have half the risk compared to those who smoke non-filtered cigarettes.

Thus, promoting smoking cessation is the most promising and most realistic direction in the prevention of bladder cancer.

There are many smoking cessation methods available, such as hypnosis, acupuncture, peripheral nicotinic antagonists such as lobeline, and mouthwashes that make cigarettes taste bad. Evidence to support these methods is generally lacking, and there have been few adequately selected control trials with follow-up of all patients. Currently available data do not show any particular efficacy superior to placebo effects. However, placebo effects may have value in their own right, and where smokers are likely to try these approaches, there is no point in trying to dissuade them.

Because most relapse occurs within the first few weeks or months, and relapse to smoking after a year's cessation is less common, success of smoking cessation programs is often defined as complete abstinence from all forms of tobacco use within one year after treatment and is measured using a biochemical test. confirming the patient's report.

Smoking cessation programs are vitally needed as a key element in the prevention of smoking-related diseases among current and future smokers. Common characteristics of a successful smoking cessation program include social support, skills and problem-solving training, healthy lifestyle choices, education, and nicotine replacement therapy and other pharmacological or behavioral therapies. Several different types of interventions have shown success in helping smokers quit.

The importance of health professionals counseling patients to quit smoking cannot be overstated. Not only doctors can help patients quit smoking. Nurses, health visitors, dentists and pharmacists also have ample opportunities to help their patients. It is important to note that every time a healthcare professional hesitates to tell a smoking patient to stop smoking, he or she is missing an opportunity for intervention. Even if the doctor's advice leads to no more than a 2% cessation rate, this modest result is very beneficial for the patient and, as shown in one recent study, is a cost-effective intervention. The few minutes each physician spends advising a patient to quit smoking can not only be effective in minimizing health risks, but will also be a cost-effective intervention that requires little time, money, or the use of professionals to help the smoker.

At each stage of smoking cessation - preparation, intervention and maintenance of change - the health professional can play a critical role. Even before the smoking cessation process begins, the health professional can serve as a means of accelerating the patient's progress through the stages of change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, and action. These workers occupy a unique position in our society: they have both the opportunity and responsibility to educate their large patient population. As role models of healthy living, doctors should not smoke, and should not ignore the smoking of their patients. Moreover, health care providers should provide advice and assistance to all patients who smoke, including those who are already ill.

Studies have shown that doctors who smoke are less likely to counsel patients about the dangers of smoking and the importance of quitting, or to downplay the dangerous health effects of smoking.

It is extremely important to provide attention to older patients. Even more vulnerable to increased illness, older patients can significantly reduce their risk of smoking-related diseases and thus reap significant health benefits by quitting smoking. Health care providers are vital to encourage and assist smoking cessation among older people, who are more likely to visit health care facilities than younger smokers.

A study in Malaysia found that few medical students surveyed viewed physician advice on smoking prevention as an important element of the physician's role. This attitude must be changed. Medical students should be trained to understand the importance of smoking cessation for all their patients, as well as the important role they, as health care professionals, can play in promoting healthy lifestyles among patients.

1. Systematically identify tobacco users and document their condition.

2. Energetically ask all smokers to quit smoking.

3. Identify smokers who want to try to quit smoking; motivate those who are not yet ready to quit; strengthen their intentions.

4. Give advice, provide supporting information; offer practical advice on how to behave as a non-smoker.

5. Suggest a course of action: Help create a schedule and plan for quitting smoking; offer nicotine replacement or other types of pharmacological therapy.

6. Schedule follow-up contacts.

Quitting smoking is a process. As a rule, it begins with changing the patient's attitude towards smoking. It makes sense to give recommendations for quitting smoking even when it seems that the smoker is not interested in it. This may be the initial impulse that started the process, or the next push that will push the process a little further. Quitting smoking is probably the most important single change that smokers can make that can positively impact their health.

Many smokers put off quitting smoking until a later date, believing that irreparable harm has already been caused to their body and therefore it is too late to quit smoking. This is not true. The damage caused to the body by smoking worsens with each new cigarette smoked. The earlier a person started smoking, the greater the risk he will be exposed to later. And the sooner a person quits smoking, the better the effect will be.

Quitting smoking is really beneficial. If people quit smoking before they develop cancer, serious complications heart or lung disease, they largely avoid the risk of premature death.

Quitting smoking has an immediate impact on a person's health. positive influence. The risk of developing a serious illness begins to decrease almost immediately, breathing improves very quickly, and those who quit smoking will become less susceptible to coughing attacks and the development of infections. Plus, they (and their clothes) will smell better.

It is known that returning to smoking is not that uncommon. Cases of temporary return to smoking are especially common.

Therefore, do not be disappointed in yourself and do not give up. You need to accept this as part of the process, as a stage in bringing your decision to life!

On the other hand, it is important to accept your return to smoking as an experience that can be used next time. When a smoker tries to quit, he usually uses the wealth of information about himself that he has gained from past relapses.

Indeed, now you know which methods are effective for you and which are not! If you try to understand the factors that triggered your relapse, you can develop the right strategy to overcome them next time.

With this approach, you can turn small mistakes into benefits and prevent a complete return to smoking. This means that all the work you have done is not in vain!

Does this mean you have lost? Not at all. You have every chance to successfully complete the work you started. Analyze your past experiences and think about other possible options for ending the situation in which you smoked:

When and where did I start smoking again?

Was there anyone with me then? Who?

What was your mood like?

I think this happened because...

If it were possible to experience this situation again, what could be done to prevent it?

I think this experience will help me next time because...

And rest assured that you can quit smoking again. When you encounter a similar situation, you will successfully solve it!

This may depend on several reasons. To understand them, answer the questions that will help you find the answer:

1. Did you really want to quit smoking?

2. Are you concerned about weight gain?

3. You don't know how to cope with stress without cigarettes?

4. Are you addicted to smoking?

5. You can’t refuse cigarettes offered by others?

6. Do you need help from family or friends?

When you feel that you know how to solve the problem and are ready for it, you can confidently set a New Smoke Free Day and start quitting again!

And most importantly, try again, try other paths, get to know yourself, don’t be afraid of change! And sooner or later, but you will definitely succeed!

Even unsuccessful attempts to quit smoking are beneficial to your health. Scientists from the University of Kuopio examined more than a thousand residents of two rural areas of Finland and found that stopping smoking, even for a short time, reduces the risk of premature death in men by twenty percent.

It is well known that smoking causes decreased lung function, which in turn increases the risk of death from all causes. Now, for the first time, smoking breaks (called occasional smoking) have been shown to reduce lung damage and prolong life in middle-aged men.

As Dr. Margit Pelkonen noted, this is good news for people who lack the willpower to give up on this completely. addiction. New data allows us to recommend at least trying to quit smoking.

It has long been known that smoking does not benefit the body. Everyone knows about this, but no one cares about the warnings about the dangers of smoking voiced by their own Ministry of Health. No one is afraid of stories about lung cancer, especially when the outline of a cigarette pack is clearly visible in the pocket of an unhealthy-looking doctor who amuses his patients with these horror stories.

Don't scare today's healthy and strong guy by talking about lung cancer. “My grandfather smoked until he was 90, and died from drunkenness.” What is there to object to? This disease is not terrible, especially since awareness about it is not at all at the level. Perhaps that is why in some countries they decided to slightly modify the standard warnings by placing photographs of organs affected by diseases on the packages instead.

You can also talk with smokers about diseases that are “interesting” and, most importantly, understandable to them. Here, women and men need a different approach. Research shows that components of cigarette smoke destroy collagen, the main structural protein of the skin. This means that smoking actually ages the skin, adding premature wrinkles.

This is for women. What is it that frightens men? A recent survey among the British showed that, more than cancer, AIDS and even death, they fear impotence. And this plays into the hands of anti-smoking fighters, because, as scientists have established, nicotine can cause male impotence. It is estimated that in the UK, 120 thousand people aged 30 to 40 have become impotent due to smoking.

Why is this happening? Nicotine constricts blood vessels, including those that supply blood to the penis, but in the erection mechanism the importance of blood flow is paramount. In addition, it is involved in the development of atherosclerosis, which, in turn, narrows the pelvic vessels, reducing blood flow. Moreover, the effect of smoking is both acute, immediate, and chronic.

By the way, a hybrid has been invented between the first and second methods of “intimidating” smokers described here. It is proposed to place an allegorical picture on the packs, where the ash falling from a cigarette symbolizes what happens to manhood when smoking. The usual inscriptions about the connection of impotence with smoking are also appropriate.

It is especially pronounced bad influence cigarettes for potency with already existing high blood pressure. Hypertension itself is a factor that increases the risk of sexual impotence, and some drugs for its treatment also suffer from this. However, if the patient also smokes, the risk increases by 26 (!) times. Doctors believe that all hypertensive patients need to be specifically warned about this.

Perhaps, from a preventive point of view, it would be more correct to reassure smokers that if they quit cigarettes, everything will be normal again, but this is not so.

Even former smokers with high pressure Those who quit this habit have an 11 times higher risk of impotence than those who did not smoke. A sad conclusion arises: there is no need to start smoking, and it is necessary to teach it starting from school, because then it may be too late.

Withdrawal illness is a set of symptoms or painful signs associated with the body's dependence on a particular substance.

This disease may occur when the use of any drug that causes physical dependence is reduced or stopped.

Such drugs include heroin, opium, LSD, pervitin, diphenhydramine and other sedatives, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, alcohol, nicotine.

Nicotine withdrawal disease most often manifests itself with the following symptoms:

Anxiety (87%)

Sleep disorders (84%)

Irritability (80%)

Impatience (76%)

Difficulty concentrating (73%)

Restlessness (71%)

Tobacco cravings (62%)

Hunger (53%)

Gastrointestinal problems (33%)

Headaches (24%)

Drowsiness (22%)

The percentage of smokers who experience this symptom.

If, when trying to quit smoking, you have most of the symptoms listed above and they are pronounced, then you are addicted to nicotine.

In this case, one of the ways to increase the success of your smoking cessation attempt in your case may be to use medications assistance to quit smoking, in particular, nicotine replacement therapy.

If a smoker wants to quit smoking successfully, personal motivation and conviction are vital. The situation is completely different from some infectious diseases, where vaccination and administration effective medicines provides complete and sufficient treatment, regardless of personal knowledge or belief. Many smokers wish smoking could be the same and persistently seek a magical cure that will relieve them of the responsibility for the difficult task of changing their behavior.

Perhaps the most important element of successful smoking cessation is for smokers to recognize that they themselves must be in control of change. But, as already mentioned, there are now pharmacological agents that actually increase the chances of success in a serious attempt to quit smoking. Extensive and thorough scientific research conducted over the past twenty years has shown that nicotine, as a substance, addictive, which underlies smoking, can itself be used as an effective treatment, and evidence has recently emerged of the effectiveness of new non-nicotine drugs.

The rationale for nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is that many of the difficulties in quitting smoking stem from problems caused by nicotine withdrawal. Nicotine withdrawal syndrome (consisting of a range of affective symptoms, including irritability, restlessness, feelings of depression, poor concentration and increased appetite, and compulsive smoking) occurs several hours after the last cigarette. Numerous experimental and clinical studies have shown that NRT significantly reduces the severity of withdrawal, making it easier for quitters to cope with abstinence while weaning off deeply ingrained elements of the smoking habit.

Nicotine replacement products are available in several forms, including chewing gum, skin patches, nasal sprays, tablets, and inhalers. Different forms of NRT differ in their route of administration and rate of absorption, as well as in the degree to which they provide a situational response to the urge to smoke and a behavioral ritual that replaces the ritual of smoking cigarettes. Neither form produces the high arterial nicotine concentrations associated with cigarette smoking, and the total dose of nicotine they deliver is typically only one-third to one-half that obtained from cigarettes. All this, together with the absence of toxic tars and components of the gas phase of cigarette smoke, gives them an encouraging level of safety.

Randomized trials have found that all forms of NRT are effective means to quit smoking, on average approximately doubling the chances of success in a quit attempt.

There is currently no reliable evidence that any one form of NRT stands out as more effective than others, meaning that the choice of treatment will depend more on characteristics such as the convenience of the recommended dosage regimen (skin patch has here special advantages), as well as availability.

The effectiveness of NRT appears to be independent of other treatment components, although absolute success rates are higher with more intensive behavioral support. The effect of NRT, doubling the chances of successful smoking cessation, has been identified in both brief interventions, and when sold through pharmacies, and in specialized clinics for smokers. This characteristic makes NRT important to public health approaches aimed at reaching smoking populations through simple and short interventions.

The effects of NRT in supporting smoking cessation are evident right from the very beginning of a smoking cessation attempt. Research shows that achieving complete abstinence within the first 48 hours is critical to long-term success. Those smokers who do smoke after this, even at very low levels, will almost inevitably fail to complete the attempt successfully. This means that health care providers can save money by offering repeat sets of NRT only to those who have completely abstained from smoking in a short follow-up period of about one week. There is no evidence that there is any benefit from long-term use NRT for more than eight weeks.

Availability of NRT varies across countries. In some they are available only by prescription, while in others they can be freely purchased at a pharmacy or in a regular store. Especially in developing world the cost of these products may be a major barrier to their wider use.

It is currently unusual for the health system to bear the cost of providing NRT to smokers, although there is evidence that general levels Smoking cessation rates are greatest where the cost of treatment is fully reimbursed.

The use of NRT is contraindicated in only a few cases, and recent clinical practice guidelines have suggested that NRT should be part of the mainstream treatment offered to all smokers. Even in cases where there is understandable caution when recommending the use of NRT, such as pregnancy or advanced heart disease, rational arguments based on effectiveness and safety suggest that this is still preferable to the plausible alternative of continuing to smoke cigarettes.

The history of nicotine replacement therapy began in the 1980s.

Various forms of nicotine replacement therapy are currently available around the world. The effectiveness of NRT in the treatment of tobacco dependence is associated with the relief of cravings and other symptoms of nicotine withdrawal.

As evidenced by reviews of leading experts from different countries, the effectiveness of various forms nicotine therapy varies very little, and there is no reliable scientific information yet that would allow each patient to select a strictly defined form of nicotine therapy or would indicate the advantage of one form over another. There are also no contraindications against combining different drugs. In some cases, this combination gives positive effect.

However, if one type of nicotine therapy fails to respond, it is difficult to expect that a smoking cessation attempt using another form of NRT will be more successful.

The availability of nicotine therapy medications is regulated differently in different countries. In the UK, for example, these are drugs prescribed by a doctor.

However, it should be noted that a number of countries have already decided or are considering the issue that medications for the treatment of tobacco dependence are prescribed by a doctor, but their cost is subsequently reimbursed to the patient. This is due to the established cost-effectiveness of measures related to smoking cessation, that is, the costs of the state or employer in relation to a former smoker are objectively reduced, which allows in developed countries to raise the issue of reimbursement of the cost of treatment.

In a number of other countries they are sold without a prescription, while in the United States, for example, it was noted that the conversion of these drugs into over-the-counter drugs was the reason for 3.8 million new attempts to quit smoking in one year, of which 630,000 were successful.

The study found that smoking cessation success rates with nicotine therapy did not depend on whether the drug was prescribed by a doctor or purchased over the counter.

Currently, nicotine-containing chewing gum is available in approximately 20 European countries. It should only be offered to the patient after he has received careful instructions.

It is not a miracle cure and will not in itself make a person quit smoking. However, it will reduce the desire to smoke.

With this chewing gum, nicotine enters the body, but not as quickly as with cigarette smoke. And it will not bring the same satisfaction as a cigarette.

Doctor's advice on using gum:

Use it instead of, and NOT in parallel with, smoking a cigarette.

Each lozenge can be chewed for 20-30 minutes;

Stop chewing if you feel slightly dizzy, have hiccups, or find the flavor of the gum too strong;

Chewing gum may taste bad for a few days. But don't worry. You'll get used to it.

The use of nicotine-containing chewing gum is rarely addictive.

If chewing gum is used without following instructions and without proper supervision, it will likely not be very effective.

For severely addicted smokers, 4 mg gum was found to be more beneficial than 2 mg gum. Since the degree of dependence is quite difficult to quantify, for practical purposes one can use the criterion: whether a person smokes more than 20 cigarettes a day or not.

Approximately 25% of smoking cessation attempts occur using the patch, which is the most popular form of nicotine therapy and is preferred by smokers if they have a choice.

There are patches designed for 16 hours and 24 hours with different dosages. Research shows that for moderately and heavily dependent smokers, the standard 21 mg patch for 24 hours was more effective than its lower dosage counterparts.

Combining the patch with other forms of nicotine replacement therapy is safe and appears to be more effective than using the patch alone.

The inhaler, unlike other nicotine preparations, allows you to take puffs, which makes it similar to the usual way a smoker obtains nicotine. In this case, nicotine is supplied to Airways mixed with menthol. Some research suggests that combining an inhaler with a patch may be the best combination for the most addicted smokers.

A special homeopathic spray will help you quit smoking. It allows you to control the craving for nicotine and helps cope with the psychological dependence on smoking. Often parting with a cigarette is accompanied by neuroses and insomnia. Spray removes discomfort and softens the adaptation period. It also helps in case of cough, difficulty and shortness of breathing, and relieves the feeling of heaviness in the chest associated with smoking.

Simply spray the spray over your tongue once or twice. The results are felt almost immediately - usually within a minute or even a few seconds.

The spray contains absolutely no alcohol and has no side effects. No prescription required.

Its small size allows you to always carry it with you.

The success of NRT has contributed to renewed interest in finding other drugs that could help smoking cessation. Many have so far failed to provide evidence of their effectiveness (including most of the anxiolytics and antidepressants tested), while for others, such as clondine, promising signs have been offset by unacceptable side effects.

The drug bupropion, an atypical antidepressant with some noradrenergic and dopamine activity, recently became the first non-nicotine drug licensed for smoking cessation in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Its mechanism of action does not appear to be related to the drug's antidepressant properties, but rather to mechanisms similar to addiction.

Clinical trials among non-depressed smokers have provided clear evidence of its effectiveness; Bupropion and nicotine patches appear to have additive effects with increased benefit. Bupropion has a positive effect on body weight. Those smokers who took bupropion gained less weight than those who received a placebo.

This effect has also been observed in some NRT trials, but the weight gain suppression effect of pharmacological treatment may not be maintained when therapy is stopped. Bupropion is not yet available in most countries, but it is of significant interest because of the potential it may shed on mechanisms of nicotine addiction in the brain and because of its potential to complement the therapeutic effects of NRT.

Smoking tobacco is an acquired reflex. It is, as it were, “recorded” in a person in a certain structure of the brain - the “smoker’s center”.

The only radical, i.e., destroying the “smoker’s reflex”, and in connection with this the most effective method Treatment of tobacco smoking is a method of reflexology.

It is necessarily carried out using gold and silver needles so that a difference in electrical potential can be obtained at different acupuncture points of the auricle, since the potential on gold needles inserted into the body is 6.5 times higher than on silver ones.

Unlike all other methods, it, due to the creation of an electrical potential difference on the human body, makes it possible to “erase” the “smoker’s reflex” in the memory and complete indifference to smoking appears, such indifference as in a person who has never smoked in his life. smoked It’s understandable that if there is no “smoker’s reflex”, then there is absolutely no desire to smoke as much as you like. for a long time. If the potential difference at the points of the auricle is not recreated, then the effect will either not be achieved at all, or it will only be of a psychotherapeutic nature. Since each person has his own size total potential body, then in order to “erase” the notorious “smoker’s reflex” in the cerebral cortex, everyone only needs an acceptable electrical potential at the points of the auricle. Potentials of other magnitudes are not physiological for a given person and therefore do not have an effect. For this reason, smoking cessation treatment with needles made only of stainless steel or with electropuncture is not always successful, since in the first case there is no potential difference, and in the second case, the potential created by the device is the same for all patients. The use of gold and silver needles allows naturally create at auricular acupuncture points the optimal value of the electrical potential, characteristic of each individual, and in connection with this, the effectiveness of treatment increases sharply.

In 20% of people, the “smoker’s reflex” is “erased” in one procedure, in the rest - by the third procedure. The fourth and fifth procedures are consolidative. The full course of treatment consists of five procedures, and the overall treatment effect is close to 90%.

Recently, the popularity of salads has noticeably increased, and there is hardly a family that does not grow this crop on their plot.

Lettuce is an early source of vitamins B1, B2, B6, E, P, PP, K, C, provitamin A, mineral salts, the quantity of which is superior among vegetables. It is also a source of potassium, sodium, microelements: boron, iron, copper, molybdenum, manganese, phosphorus, iodine.

Salad also supplies the body with fiber, removes cholesterol and salts from the body, and helps regulate water metabolism. The presence of organic acids has an invigorating effect on the body. Salad strengthens the walls of blood vessels and lowers blood sugar levels. Lettuce juice is used to treat chronic gastritis, gastric and duodenal ulcers.

An infusion of fresh leaves is recommended (1 tablespoon of leaves per glass of boiling water, leave for 30 minutes, take 3 times a day). In addition to the leaves, an infusion of seeds is also useful for nursing mothers. Latex is obtained from lettuce stems, which is widely used in homeopathy.

The salad is consumed raw, as well as stewed and fried, especially the cabbage varieties.

There are several varieties of lettuce: leaf lettuce (Dubachek, Emerald, Moscow Greenhouse, Robin, Sesame - form a rosette of green leaves after 40-50 days); half-headed mid-season with crispy leaves (Azart, Kucheryavets, Gribovsky, Odessky - 55-68 days). Mid-season cabbages include: King Maya, Large-headed, Olympus, Festival - 52-70 days).

Late salads include salads with a growing season of 70-75 days (Klavier, Tarzan, Larande). Romaine lettuce (Paris Green, Paris Island, Little Jewel, Cimmaron) also belongs to this group.

Many smokers are underweight because smoking suppresses appetite and nicotine speeds up metabolic processes in the body. Smokers weigh on average 3 kg less than non-smokers.

Quitting smoking is often accompanied by weight gain (about 80% of smokers experience weight gain). Moreover, it affects women more.

However, it has been found that the weight gain experienced by those who quit smoking brings them to a weight similar to that of sex- and age-matched non-smokers.

And since such an increase poses a much lower health risk than smoking, it should not influence the decision to quit smoking.

It is also known that if a person who has quit smoking has gained weight, then if smoking resumes, this weight does not necessarily have to decrease.

To minimize the likelihood high magnification weight, you just need to follow some nutritional rules.

1. Avoid high-calorie foods: fatty and sweet (in addition, sweets are known to increase cravings for cigarettes).

2. Drink 7-8 glasses of liquid per day. Moreover, if you drink a certain amount of low-calorie drinks before meals, this is a very effective trick that reduces appetite.

3. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, fish and low-fat meat.

4. Eat only when you are really hungry, and not from doing nothing.

5. And most importantly - move a lot, be active, and everything will work out without consequences for your figure!

According to research by American doctors from Stanford University, using medications to wean yourself off smoking can be much more dangerous than the consequences of smoking itself. Especially if the period of “treatment” is delayed for one reason or another.

After a series of experiments and based on a comprehensive analysis of the data obtained, scientists came to the conclusion that the means traditionally used to combat smoking - for example, special chewing gum with a low nicotine content - cause the development of tumors, both benign and malignant. In addition, in this case, the risk of vascular blood clots, as well as strokes and heart attacks, increases significantly.

In general, Dr. Cook, under whose leadership these studies were conducted, sums up that it is possible to be treated with medication, but it is better only under the guidance of a doctor. Better yet, quit smoking in the most natural way, that is, through willpower.

Britons trying to quit smoking are being taken under medical observation following reports of 18 smokers dying from the anti-smoking pill Zyban.

The Ministry of Health confidently states that the causes of these deaths do not depend directly on the use of pills. More than 250,000 Britons have taken the drug since the treatment was introduced last year.

A representative from the manufacturer of Zyban said that more than 15 million people from different countries have used these pills and no evidence was found in clinical trials increased risk deaths in this group.

These tablets are the first UK-registered anti-smoking product that does not contain nicotine.

Every hour in Britain, 13 people die, the cause of which is smoking to one degree or another, reports BBC News. Research has also shown that approximately 68 percent of smokers want to quit the habit.

The UK Medicines Authority has sent out an emergency warning to doctors and patients about a drug that can help with nicotine addiction.

In this case we're talking about about the anti-nicotine drug Zyban, and the problem associated with its use became relevant after control results obtained and analyzed within a year after the drug went on sale showed that when interacting with other medicines Zyban can pose a deadly risk to a person's life.

Reports received and analyzed since June 2000 indicate that sudden death occurred in an airline flight attendant who had been taking the drug for two weeks. There were other cases of fatalities.

In addition, in numerous reports from various medical institutions, as well as doctors and patients, there are more than 5,300 cases of various negative reactions and side effects that occur during the use of the drug Zyban. Moreover, 40 of the above reactions and side effects carry a potential risk fatal outcome.

Developed as an antidepressant, Zyban has shown relatively good results in cases where patients were trying to get rid of nicotine addiction. However, what happens when this drug begins to interact with other drugs has not been adequately studied.

Thus, 21-year-old Carrie Weston, a flight attendant for British Airways, died in a hotel room in Nairobi as a result of an epileptic seizure after taking the drug Zyban, the malaria drug Chloroquine and a sleeping pill.

It is clear that modifications to cigarettes themselves and their production technology could reduce the toxicity and carcinogenicity of tobacco smoke and thus reduce the burden of smoking-related disease and death.

Searches of patent archives around the world show that tobacco and other companies have filed numerous patents on technologies and processes that would reduce the concentration of known harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke.

For example, these patents include:

Adding catalysts to cigarettes to reduce carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides. A similar chemical approach has been applied to catalytic converters used to clean automobile exhaust. If this approach were used, it would reduce the burden of heart disease.

Production processes that would block localization by at least one of the nitrosamines in the lung tissue of smokers. This would reduce the burden of cancer.

Chemical filters that would remove large quantities of hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulfide while also removing acetaldehyde. This would help reduce the burden respiratory diseases.

It is extremely unlikely that a safe cigarette will ever be made. However, current tobacco products cause the premature death of one in two regular smokers. Even a small relief from these grim statistics would save thousands of lives. However, only a few inventions have been used by tobacco companies. This irresponsible attitude towards the health of consumers of their products has a number of reasons:

Innovations in cigarette safety are leading tobacco companies into legal and marketing difficulties. If the new product is less dangerous, then the company must confirm the danger of its existing products. However, to defend themselves legally, tobacco companies continue to insist that the relationship between smoking and health harm remains unclear and controversial.

Patrick Sheehy, former Chief Executive of British American Tobacco Corporation (BAT), made the following damning statement in 1986 in a confidential internal document recently released as a result of a lawsuit in the US: “I cannot support your contention that we should give higher priority to projects , aimed at developing a "safe" cigarette (as perceived by those who believe that our current products are "dangerous") by eliminating, or at least reducing to acceptable levels, all those components that our critics claim are carcinogenic .

In attempting to develop a 'safe' cigarette, you are essentially putting us in danger of being perceived as 'dangerous' by our current products, which is not a position I believe we should take."

Innovation would undoubtedly lead to costs for new investments in equipment, production and redesign of cigarettes. If there is no way to recover these costs by advertising the new product as an improved cigarette, there is no commercial incentive to do so. To recoup costs, producers would have to trade harm reduction benefits. However, if companies start competing on the “safety” of their products, very dangerous (for them) dynamics could occur.

The last thing manufacturers want is for smokers to be sensitized to health risks by the companies' own marketing. Confidence in tobacco products in new markets, where the health effects of tobacco are not yet widely known, could evaporate.

Regulatory bodies such as the US Federal Trade Commission and the European Union, not to mention country authorities former USSR, have never required tobacco companies to use the best available technology to reduce the harm caused by their products. Regulations around the world continue to follow the lead of the US Federal Trade Commission.

Instead, an alternative methodology was adopted and widely used, which seemed to offer more dangerous cigarettes. This was the approach of low tar cigarettes and the use of smoking machines to measure tar yield. This created the distracting illusion of harm reduction. This cheap approach offers smokers deliberately false reassurance. Thanks to wide application By this misleading approach, tobacco companies have been able to avoid expensive and troublesome modifications to their products that would actually reduce the toxicity of tobacco smoke and thus tobacco-related damage and loss of life.

Most tobacco product regulations in all countries are based on the approach developed by the US Federal Trade Commission in the mid-1960s. It consists in the fact that a special smoking machine takes puffs every minute with a duration of 2 seconds and a volume of 35 ml until a predetermined length of the cigarette is smoked. After this, the sediment accumulated on the filter of the smoking machine is analyzed.

Current regulations control the quantitative content of, at best, only three components of tobacco - "tar", nicotine and carbon monoxide - as measured by a mechanical smoking machine.

"Tar" is the collective name for the thousands of chemicals that make up the sticky residue deposited in a smoker's lungs. Most countries only regulate resin. Using a mechanical smoking machine to measure just these three components has proven to be a fundamentally flawed way to characterize the harm of tobacco smoke.

In the European Union, Directive 90/239/EEC was adopted in 1990, setting a tar content limit of 12 mg per cigarette as measured by a mechanical smoking machine. In Russia and Ukraine, measurements of tar and nicotine content are carried out using the same methodology on similar smoking machines. In this case, the tar content limits are 15 mg per cigarette for filtered cigarettes and 24 mg (Russia) and 22 mg (Ukraine) for non-filtered cigarettes.

Reducing machine-measured resin intake is achieved by two main methods: filters and ventilation.

Conventional filters remove some of the suspended particles in smoke. If the filter also reduces the nicotine content of the smoke, then smokers will adjust their smoking to achieve a satisfactory dose of nicotine. The smoker may do this by taking more puffs, taking deeper puffs, smoking more of each cigarette, or smoking more cigarettes. This process is called "compensation". In 1976, a lawyer for the tobacco firm Brown & Williamson, E. Pepples, wrote: “In most cases, a smoker of filtered cigarettes gets the same amount of tar and nicotine as he would get from an unfiltered cigarette. However, he refuses unfiltered cigarettes in an attempt to reduce the health risks.” The value of a filter therefore depends on the extent to which it can selectively remove tar components without removing nicotine. For many years, the tar to nicotine ratio has been approximately 10 to 1, although there has been a modest improvement in this ratio.

If you make tiny holes in the filter, air is sucked into the smoke to dilute it. Of course, this also dilutes the nicotine in the smoke, and smokers compensate by inhaling large quantity smoke. In addition to taking deeper puffs, smokers can also block the holes in the filters to keep air out and ensure they are drawing in enough smoke to get an adequate dose of nicotine. Neither of these methods guarantees the smoker a supply of less harmful tar, and certainly does not reduce the amount of tar that the smoker inhales to anything close to what is measured by the smoking machine. A person smoking a 6 mg tar cigarette will likely ingest almost as much tar as a person smoking a 12 mg tar cigarette.

The consumer proceeded from the assumption that if one pack of cigarettes says 10 mg of tar, and the other - 1 mg of tar, then by switching to smoking second cigarettes, his body will receive 10 times less tar, which will have a beneficial effect on his health. The tobacco industry strongly supported this opinion, calling the new cigarettes “light” and “ultra-light” and actively advertising them. However, studies conducted over the past 15 years have shown that the numbers indicated on cigarette packs do not correspond to reality. Smokers can easily get as much nicotine from light cigarettes as from regular cigarettes. To do this, they increase the volume of the puff, puff more often and harder, and also block the holes in the filter and as a result receive much more nicotine, and therefore tar.

The complexity of the situation can be illustrated by comparison with alcoholic beverages. A bottle of vodka and a bottle of beer have a measurable alcohol content, and that is how much alcohol the person drinking them absorbs. In the case of cigarettes, there is the nicotine content in tobacco (about 11 mg), the nicotine intake measured by the smoking machine (from 0.1 to 1.5 mg depending on the filter, ventilation, etc.) and the actual intake into the smoker’s body, which differs from person to person. different smokers and one smoker, depending on the time of day, state of the body, etc. and range from 0.5 to 3 mg or more. Thus, the equivalent of the same cigarette can be both a bottle of beer and a bottle of vodka. By switching to lower-tar cigarettes, smokers may increase the number of cigarettes they smoke and inhale the smoke more deeply.

It is beneficial for tobacco companies to stimulate the transition to “light” cigarettes: they are more expensive and smokers smoke more of them. What is even more important for the tobacco industry is that because of “light” cigarettes, many smokers do not quit smoking. A declassified 1971 document from the British American Tobacco Corporation states openly: “This is exactly what management expects from the research and development department: how low-tar, low-nicotine cigarettes will sell. The question of whether such cigarettes are actually less dangerous is irrelevant."

Compensatory behavior may negate any benefits of low-resin products or even increase health risks. Smoking low-tar filter cigarettes can cause adenocarcinoma, a special type of lung cancer.

One study found that between 1959 and 1991, the incidence of adenocarcinoma, which is found in the periphery of the lungs, increased 17-fold in women and 10-fold in men. Researchers believe that those who smoke low-tar and low-nicotine filter cigarettes take deeper, longer breaths to get the nicotine hit, and therefore increase the impact of the smoke on their lungs.

Thanks to tobacco additives, “light” cigarettes are subjectively perceived by smokers as not as strong as regular cigarettes, so they easily believe that these cigarettes are less hazardous to health.

Two large long-term studies of switching to light cigarettes found no health benefits, as smokers puffed deeper to compensate for the reduced nicotine intake. Back in 1979, BAT Corporation researcher P. Lee concluded that “the effect of switching to low-tar cigarettes may be to increase rather than reduce the risk of smoking.”

The Canadian Ministry of Health recently released a report detailing the chemical composition of smoke from the major brands of cigarettes sold there. The measurements were carried out under different smoking modes: according to the FTC standard and according to the intensive mode (the puff volume increased from 35 to 56 ml, the interval between puffs decreased from 60 to 26 seconds, the holes on the filter were blocked).

As a result of the tests, it was revealed that tests under intensive conditions led to an increase in all indicators of the composition of “ultra-light” cigarettes by an average of 3-4 times (tar content - by 4.5 times!), and the differences between conventional and “ultra-light” cigarettes were almost not detected. It is significant that in any test mode, the differences in the side smoke of conventional and “ultra-light” cigarettes were, as a rule, within the error limits. These data indicate that all differences in “ultra-light” cigarettes are explained by the design of the filter, and when the holes on the filter are blocked, these differences disappear.

Based on the tests, the Department of Health concluded: “Many smokers believe that light cigarettes are safer than regular cigarettes and that when smoking light cigarettes they inhale less cancer-causing substances or less nicotine.

New smoking tests conducted in British Columbia show that this belief is completely wrong. "Reports from tobacco companies show that light cigarettes appear to deliver as much (or more) toxic substances as regular cigarettes."

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) itself no longer supports its own approach to measuring harm caused by cigarettes. In 1998, she wrote to the US Department of Health saying that the machine's method of measuring tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide was under serious criticism and needed significant rethinking. In a press release, the FTC states, "New evidence shows that the limited health benefits previously believed to be associated with low-tar, low-nicotine cigarettes are likely absent."

The British American Tobacco Corporation was forced to admit in 1997: “We take into account the concerns of the medical community when developing “lighter cigarettes”, but we cannot advertise them as “less dangerous” cigarettes because we simply do not have enough understanding of chemical processes."

Nowhere in the world are there regulations requiring tobacco companies to reduce or control the concentrations of certain harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke. The concept of “tar” is poorly suited as a basis for regulating tobacco products. Different cigarettes have been shown to produce tar with highly variable concentrations of key toxins. As new tobacco products are developed in the future, the concept of “tar” may change beyond recognition.

Thus, current forms of tobacco regulation and harm reduction approaches are not working. Any reductions in harm that have occurred are likely to be unanticipated side effects rather than the direct result of deliberate, pro-health regulatory policies. The tobacco industry continues to defend the current approach, knowing that it is completely flawed and misleading to smokers.

“How to fight smoking?” - the question is very relevant, because this is the problem of our modern society. According to statistics, over 16 billion cigarettes are smoked every day in the world per unit of population, including those who are not heavy smokers. In Russia alone, more than 300 billion cigarettes are smoked annually, and the total number of smokers in the country is more than 40% of the total population. At the same time, all of us know that smoking is a harmful habit and dangerous to the health of not only the smoker himself, but also the people around him. Consequently, everyone should take part in the fight against nicotine - smokers and non-smokers, society and authorities, education and culture, science and information, physical education and medicine. We will consider methods of combating smoking in more detail in our publication today.

Many of us know that not only many smokers and their families are interested in quitting nicotine, but also anti-tobacco programs, doctors and the media. Every day we can see billboards with anti-tobacco advertising, “stumble upon” videos about the dangers of smoking, read educational articles, etc. Moreover, even smokers themselves, when opening a pack of cigarettes, see a warning about what diseases this addiction provokes.

The frightening statistics of smokers, many of whom are women and teenagers, indicate that tobacco annually claims about 25% of men's and 5% of women's lives. In addition, more than 80% of the total population of our country is exposed to passive smoking, in public places and at home. Smoking has become a dangerous social phenomenon, so the initiative to combat it must come from each of us. Nicotine takes away health, steals lives and destroys families. So how to deal with it? We'll talk about this further.

Begin with yourself

Private to give up smoking- most effective way fighting a bad habit. Indeed, in addition to the fact that a smoker kills his health, he also endangers innocent children and non-smoking relatives. Few people know that spouses of heavy smokers die on average 5 years earlier than their peers. Therefore, carefully study your “enemy”, get the support of loved ones and direct all your efforts to giving up the bad habit. Today, there are many tools to help you quit smoking: pills, special literature, hypnosis, psychotherapy. And remember: everything is real, you just have to want it!

Effective measures to reduce tobacco consumption

Everyone, without exception, should participate in the fight against smoking. The anti-tobacco campaign methodology is as follows:

1. Explanatory work. The media, parents, teachers, doctors and leaders should inform every person about the harmful consequences of cigarettes, universally popularizing a healthy lifestyle and giving up bad habits.
2. Restrictions and prohibitions. Since the theory about the dangers of tobacco products is not always accessible to a large audience of people, laws and regulations must come into force that limit free smoking and inform about its harm. Smoking in public places, on the territory of children's complexes, near train stations, etc. should be punishable.
3. Troubleshooting. This approach requires a comprehensive impact on the population and on each person individually, eliminating the main causes of tobacco addiction. Free programs to quit cigarettes, help from psychologists, medications, helping to reduce cravings for nicotine - all this should be available to every person.

Many countries have already passed Smoking Ban Laws to protect the environment and citizens from tobacco smoke and tobacco products. Rising prices for tobacco products have also led to a decline in smoking. However, the help of specialists in the fight against smoking for heavy smokers should also be present, since prohibitions are not always effective for such people. Therefore, you can fight nicotine addiction using the “carrot and stick” method - introduce smoking bans, but at the same time provide all the conditions so that the smoker can survive the period of quitting nicotine as painlessly as possible.

Let's fight for a smoking-free life together!