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"Whenever I see a new patient," the doctor was saying casually, "I usually can tell immediately if they are a heavy smoker or not."
Just keep in mind that, like pretty, sexy is as sexy does. If you are a smoker with premature facial wrinkling, yellowed skin, stained teeth and fingers, bad breath and an overall ashtray essence, sexy isn't the word that comes to mind.
Besides not looking your best, each single cigarette decreases the number of years you could be sexy and healthy. (More about that later.) However, if you decide to quit, almost immediately your body rejoices and begins to heal itself.
And, more about that later.
With every puff on a cigarette, the smoker invites some 3,000-plus chemicals into the body. Many are proven to be carcinogenic.
Nicotine and carbon monoxide combine, resulting in peripheral vasoconstriction (narrowing of the blood vessels) and oxygen depletion. This produces a rise in blood pressure and heart rate. Nicotine also interferes with insulin absorption, exposing the smoker to diabetic complications.
"One is too many and a thousand is not enough."Nicotine has a direct affect on the endothelial cells and the microvascular cells, and when they are impaired, the result can be atherosclerosis (disease of the arteries) and cancer.
“In a smoker, this impairment can cause an increase in the LDL (bad cholesterol) and a decrease in the HDL (good cholesterol) as well as inflammation,” explains Francisco Fuentes, MD, and professor in cardiology at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston.
Every time a person inhales cigarette smoke, a chain reaction takes place: blood vessels constrict, heart rate and blood pressure increase, and oxygen in the blood is partially replaced with carbon monoxide.
Carbon monoxide, the same poisonous gas that makes automobile fumes dangerous, is the carcinogen that passes through the lungs and into the blood, reducing its oxygen content. The poor circulation that results causes problems all through the body.
Carbon monoxide also robs the body of oxygen for several hours. Smoking for 10 minutes decreases oxygen in the tissues for almost one hour, "consequently, a pack-a-day smoker would remain hypoxic (oxygen deficient) for most of each day," says Adelaide Hebert, MD, and professor in dermatology at UT Medical School.
Smokers fool no one, especially dermatologists who are well-trained in knowing what healthy skin is supposed to look like – at any age.
The skin of a smoker, regardless of age, takes on the look of crepe paper. Fine lines, tiny dimpling, sagging and wrinkles appear from the eventual loss of collagen, the stuff that makes skin bounce back into shape.
Both layers of skin – the epidermis and the dermis – are affected the same from tobacco smoke "and the damage is cumulative, it increases through the years," Hebert explains.
The epidermis, or the top layer, and the deeper dermis, which contains the collagen and the blood vessels, become naturally thinner with aging. Collagen is the backbone of the dermis and plumps it up.
"If you looked at a person who tans regularly, either with the sun or in a salon, and also looked at a smoker, who lives in a closet, both would have similar aging," Hebert says. This occurs because the sun and smoking cause not only a loss of collagen but also a decrease in the components that create it, as well as a breakdown in the elastic fibers of the skin.
"The only thing worse is a tanner who smokes."
Because smoking causes blood vessels to constrict, it reduces the amount of blood flow to the skin, thus depriving the skin of oxygen and essential nutrients. When a smoker has a surgical procedure (even plastic surgery to rid the effects of smoking), scars not only are slow to heal but also are longer and wider once healing is complete.
Tobacco smoke extract, like ultraviolet radiation, is an important factor contributing to the changes in the skin that reduce collagen production and overstimulate tropoelastin, resulting in wrinkles.
The list of negative effects on the body caused by smoking grows longer as more is learned about the health conditions and diseases it causes:
Another problem that is seen in the dermatology clinic is a special form of psoriasis that emerges only on the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet.
"Palmoplantar psoriasis, an autoimmune disease, is possibly induced by smoking," Hebert says. "Ninety-five percent of patients with it are smokers at the onset of the disease, which is harder to treat if the patient continues smoking."
In addition, the risk for developing squamous cell carcinomas (a type of skin cancer) increases with smoking. It results from ultraviolet radiation and chronic arsenic exposure. Arsenic is another carcinogen in cigarette smoke.
Tar, also a harmful residue of tobacco smoke, consists of hundreds of carcinogens. It penetrates the airways and leaves a brown, sticky substance in the lining of the lungs' air sacs, destroying some and damaging others.
Still another cancer-causing element is benzopyrene, which damages P53, a cancer-suppressing gene.
"One of the most cost-effective actions a family can undertake is to help the smoker quit. To be truly successful in giving up smoking, a person must have a strong desire and a supportive family," Fuentes says, who has been counseling the families of heart attack and stroke patients for many years.
When this type of life-changing event occurs, the smoker will often want to quit. "The reinforcement program includes follow-up phone calls of encouragement, prescription drugs to reduce the craving, helping the smoker arrange a quitting date and helping the family plan a celebration."
The American Cancer Society's 31st annual Great American Smoke Out takes place November 15, 2007. Buoyed by other smokers throughout the nation all gutting it out together, a person hoping to quit may have a better chance of success.
The cardiac rehabilitation counseling in smoking awareness that Fuentes conducts brings home to the smoker what secondhand smoke does to family members, especially the children, who usually develop respiratory conditions like bronchitis.
"Those innocent bystanders are statistics in the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which has announced that smoking was the No. 1 actual cause of death in the U.S. in 2000. Of the 435,000 smoking-related deaths, 35,000 included deaths due to second-hand smoke and infant deaths due to maternal smoking (while pregnant)," Fuentes says.
Just like that first puff which brings on many negative responses in the body, stopping, at any age, causes immediate and significant health benefits:
Withdrawal symptoms, both physical and mental, are normal when giving up any drug use. Here is what can be expected – but reactions will vary from person to person:
Just knowing what to expect can help people through the struggle period. Knowing how good you can feel in less than 30 days can leave you wondering: What took me so long?
"Is it any wonder that smoking is the main cause of preventable death in the developed countries of the world?" Fuentes asks.
For more information on the Great American Smoke Out, please visit the the American Cancer Society website.
UPDATED: 11-15-2007
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Dr. Francisco Fuentes is a professor in cardiology at the UT Medical School.
See Dr. Fuentes also at:
Dr. Adelaide Hebert is a professor in the Department of Dermatology at the UT Medical School.
See Dr. Hebert also at:
Men: Pay Attention
to Your Bicycle Seat
Men who bike more than three hours a week should be aware that standard bicycle seats, ridden for extended periods, can cause temporary numbness and, in some, more serious problems, such as erectile dysfunction.
Such problems are caused by compression of an artery and a nerve connected to the penis. New seat designs to minimize compression are now available.
Other preventive measures you can incorporate:
