For women, it’s never too late to quit smoking

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BY KAWANZA NEWSON / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Women who stop smoking dramatically reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke by 20 percent within five years and have a lung cancer risk similar to that of a non-smoker after 30 years, a new study shows.

The findings support previous research that removing tobacco from the body is beneficial to health.

Meanwhile, a U.S. panel headed by a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher released updated guidelines on the best way to quit.

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Looking to quit smoking?

Contact the Nebraska Tobacco Quitline at (866) 632-7848 or Nicotine Anonymous at 476-9668.



The facts

According to a 2006-07 women’s health report by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services:

* 17.8 percent of women report they smoke every day or some days.

* 33.4 percent of Nebraska women have been diagnosed with high cholesterol (as of 2005)

* 24.2 of women have been diagnosed with high blood pressure (as of 2005)

The new recommendations encourage use of both counseling and medication to fight the addiction and stress that physicians should ask every patient at every visit about their smoking status.

“If you’re ready to quit, there are evidence-based treatments out there to help you succeed,” said Michael Fiore, director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention and chairman of the U.S. panel on smoking cessation guidelines.

According to the latest figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20.8 percent of adults in the United States smoke, accounting for about 438,000 deaths each year.

Fiore said that a third of all smokers try to quit each year, and that a majority of smokers say they’ve tried to stop at least once.

Shirley Reimer started smoking a half-pack of cigarettes daily when she was 18 years old because it seemed cool and helped her relax. She was unaware she had a genetic lung disease called sarcoidosis that would be worsened by her habit.

Reimer, 49, of Milwaukee, was hospitalized when she was 23 and diagnosed with the lung condition, cervical cancer and lupus. Doctors encouraged her to stop smoking.

“I still didn’t quit smoking, and that’s one thing I regret,” she said.

Reimer tried to quit several times, each try lasting about three months. It wasn’t until her 3-year-old grandson expressed his concern that she made a permanent change in her behavior.

“He said, ‘Nana, please don’t smoke. I love you,’” Reimer said. “I cried and called the quit line that day.”

On Dec. 16, 2004, Reimer stopped smoking. She says she drinks water when she feels the urge to smoke and enjoys having the energy to go camping and do other activities with her grandchildren.

Tobacco contains nicotine, a poisonous substance that triggers the release of brain chemicals such as adrenaline and dopamine, causing most smokers to experience a pleasure sensation.

Repeated exposure to nicotine causes the body to become dependent.

In May 2004, the surgeon general released a report showing that smoking affects nearly every organ in the body and contributes to many more diseases than originally thought.

The 960-page report expanded the list of known diseases linked to smoking from chronic bronchitis and cancers of the lung and larynx to include abdominal aortic aneurysms, acute myeloid leukemia, cataracts, gum disease, and cancers of the cervix, kidney, pancreas and stomach.

A study published in early May in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that smoking raised the risk of colorectal cancer death, but not the risk of death from ovarian cancer.

However, women who quit smoking reduced their risk of coronary heart disease and stroke within five years.

The study also found that past smokers with 20 to 30 years of cessation had an 87 percent reduction in their risk of death from lung cancer, up from 21 percent within five years of quitting.

The information was based on data from the Nurses’ Health Survey, which began following nurses throughout the country in 1976.

“Our findings show that the risk of dying from all major causes of death was reversible,” said Stacey Kenfield, author of the study and a research fellow in the department of epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health.

“For some diseases, it just takes a little more time,” she said.

In addition to lung disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease also took at least 20 years to drop to a level comparable with a non-smoker.