Lung Detoxification

After so many serious blog entries, I figured it was time to make just a little light of the subject of smoking.  Although what happened to the ‘victim’ of this Darwin Award story was no laughing matter, the lack of forethought by these drunken fellows is just short of amazing.   Smoking kills, never doubt it.

For those that have never heard of the Darwin Awards, they are the less than glamorous recognition of bizarre, thoughtless, and downright stupid things that people have done to remove themselves from the gene pool (either by death or removal of the ability to reproduce).

The Smoking Gun

Confirmed by Darwin

11 Feb 2001, New Jersey

Two drunks were goofing around, when one challenged the other to shoot him with cigarette butts “to see what it would feel like.”  His friend obligingly loaded an antique rifle with cigarette butts, place black powder behind the butts to make sure they left the barrel of the gun.  He then shot his friend from a distance of seven feet.  The projectiles penetrate the ribcage of the thirty-one-year-old who had issued the challenge, and he died of three cigarette butts to the heart.

The gene pool is in trouble!

Reference: WMAD 92.1 Madison, Wisconsin, ABC New, The Associated Press.

Ironically, this story happened in a town with the same name as an unfiltered British cigarette, and the shooter was nicknamed ‘Smokey.’  Too weird to believe?  Confirming details www.Darwinawards.com/book/cigarette.html

Reader Comments:

“More ammunition in the antismoking campaign.”

“Cigarettes are bad for your health.”

“It’s true – smoking kills.”

Until next time,

stay well, stay quit, and lung-toxin free.

William Renolds

This article on lung cancer caught my eye today.

If you are worried about what yoru smoking has doen to you this method when it comes into being may help you or many others get more infromation about the chances of cancer.

Of course, until that time you are simply better off doing a lung detox as fast as possible!

Discovery Of New Approach For Identifying Smokers At Highest Risk For Developing Lung Cancer

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) in collaboration with investigators at the University of Utah, have discovered a new approach for identifying smokers at the highest risk for developing lung cancer. The findings, which appear in the April 7th issue of Science Translational Medicine, will allow the researchers to use a genomic approach to prevent lung cancer in these individuals and to personalize cancer chemoprophylaxis and therapy.

Cigarette smoke is the dominant cause of lung cancer in the United States, accounting for an estimated 90 percent of all cases. While only 10-20 percent of smokers develop lung cancer in their lifetime, there are currently no tools available to identify which of the approximately 90 million current and former smokers in the U.S. are at the highest risk. Unfortunately, diagnosis is most often made at a very advanced stage where treatment is largely ineffective. The damage caused by cigarette smoke, however, is not limited solely to the lung, but rather constitutes a ‘field of injury’ throughout the entire respiratory tract that is exposed to the toxin. Consistent with this idea, study lead author Avrum Spira, MD, MSc, chief of the section of computational biomedicine in the department of medicine at BUSM and his colleagues, previously developed a gene expression-based biomarker measured in the cytologically normal bronchial airway epithelium that reflects an individual’s physiologic response to smoking and distinguishes smokers with and without lung cancer. Although this biomarker is successful at diagnosing lung cancer, it does not identify the signaling pathways underlying these gene expression changes.

Using a novel gene-expression based approach to define oncogenic pathway signatures, the researchers, in collaboration with Dr. Andrea Bild at the University of Utah, have now discovered that the expression of genes belonging to one specific cancer-related pathway, PI3K, are activated in the cells that line the airway of smokers with lung cancer. This gene expression activity in the normal cells of the proximal airway precedes the development of lung cancer and may be reversed with a specific chemopreventive agent (myo-inositol) that targets this pathway.

“This finding is significant as these cells can be obtained in a relatively non-invasive fashion from the airway of smokers at risk for lung cancer, and does not require invasive sampling of lung tissue where lung tumors normally arise,” said Spira, who is also an associate professor medicine and pathology at BUSM.

The BUSM researchers then went on to validate their findings by measuring the biochemical activity of this pathway in the airway epithelial cells from an independent group of smokers with and without lung cancer. “We found that this PI3K pathway gene expression activity is decreased in the airway of high-risk smokers who had regression (or improvement) of their premalignant lesions following treatment with a potential lung cancer chemopreventive agent known as myo-inositol, and demonstrated that myo-inositol inhibits the PI3K pathway in lung cancer cell lines,” he added.

According to the researchers, the data suggests that measuring this airway gene expression activity can help determine which specific cancer pathways have been deregulated within an individual smoker, allowing one to tailor a specific drug that will target the pathway to reduce that individual’s risk of lung cancer. “This represents a critical advance in the field of lung cancer prevention as there are currently no effective strategies for lung cancer prevention among high risk smokers. Our work has the potential to help address the enormous and growing public health burden associated with lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer-related death among men and women in the US and the world,” added Spira.

Funding for this study was provided by the National Institutes of Health.

Spira is one of the founders of Allegro Diagnostics Inc., a molecular diagnostics company that plans to market the gene expression biomarker.

Source:
Gina DiGravio
Boston University Medical Center

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/184801.php

It is unfortunate that before you took your first puff on a cigarette, someone didn’t sit you down and show you a catalogue of the damage you’d likely cause yourself by taking up that infernal habit (complete with goopy, color pictures).  Even a blind man could see, in the face of all the evidence, that smoking DOES damage your lungs while smoking and continues to damage your lungs after quitting smoking too. It also has a flow-on effect to your whole body causing harm to many systems. And it does this to a greater extent, and faster, the more you smoke and the longer you keep smoking.  The following is a list of the major damage that you could have done to your body by smoking. You have to accept that you did this, take responsibility for it, and then apply yourself to the task of making it as right as you can. You can’t continue to avoid it, or you’ll just keep making it worse.

As you read through this section, remind yourself:

1. Why you quit or are looking to quit

2. What you have to look forward to if you do go back (damn good motivation to stay clean)

3. Why you are working hard to improve your health!

Please note: Some of the following conditions may not have developed during your smoking ‘career.’  Others, well they are unavoidable, at least to some extent, after your first month of smoking.  If you want to know how you have been effected by your time smoking, please consult your local, qualified medical practitioner.

Damage Done Over Years of Smoking

Tobacco smoke has over 4000 chemicals in it.  These include Ammonia (used in toilet cleaner), Acetone (nail polish remover), Nicotine (insecticide at high doses), Carbon monoxide (a poison found in car exhaust fumes), Arsenic (used in rat poison), Hydrogen cyanide (gas chamber poison), Benzene (petrol additive).

This toxic chemical amalgam that enters the lungs in the form of tobacco smoke is collectively called ‘tar’ when it coats surfaces, like  fingers, teeth and air sacks of the lungs. The tar in tobacco cigarettes is a major cause of lung cancer, emphysema and bronchitis. The toxins from the tar can damage lung cells that keep tumors from forming. Cigarette tar also damages cilia in the lungs, the small, hair-like structures which protect the lining of the lungs. In addition to the discoloring of teeth, tar can cause periodontitis, a gum disease that can result in the loss of teeth.

Lung cancer: your chances of getting lung cancer depend on your genetic susceptibility, the length of time you were a smoker and how much you smoked over that time.  This is referred to as pack-years (the average number of packs per day multiplied by the number of years you’ve smoked).  The greater the pack-years, the greater the risk. When you’re getting up around 50 pack-years and beyond, that’s a lot. If people have a lot of pack-years, the risk of, say, lung cancer never goes back down to the risk of a non-smoker.

Emphysema: a disease caused by the destruction of the alveoli (small, sack like structures at the lower periphery of the lungs) and associated capillaries (tiny blood vessels), where gas exchange takes place (oxygen is taken into the body, and carbon dioxide (a waste product) is released).  Undamaged, adult, human lungs have an internal surface area around 753 sq. ft (70 m²), which is roughly one half of the standard-sized tennis court surface!  The capillaries that surround the alveoli (the other side of the gas exchange equation) run to a length of about 620 miles (nearly 1000 km)!  As gas exchange is all about surface area, you can imagine that this give a healthy person a considerable rate of gas exchange.  This is far more than is needed ‘at rest,’ but as a person’s exertions increase, so does their need for gas exchange. As emphysema progresses, this maximal volume/min of gas exchange decreases, effecting your ability to exert yourself.  So the tiny little air sacs become bigger ones — and they’re less efficient in transporting oxygen. The lung can’t grow new walls for these air sacs. The lung loses tiny blood vessels and can’t grow new ones. So that’s permanent. Anyone who has smoked for more than a few months has at least some level of emphysema.

(Chronic) Bronchitis: a disease caused by inflammation (swelling) of the lining of the bronchial tubes (the larger ‘pipes’ leading down to the alveoli, where gas exchange occurs). Long-term bronchitis, termed ‘chronic,’ is an inflammation and swelling of the lining of the airways that lead to their narrowing and obstruction.  This inflammation stimulates production of mucus (sputum), which can cause further obstruction of the airways. Some of this inflammation can be reversed. But if the inflammation has led to scarring of the walls of the airway, some of that cannot.  Again it depends on how long you’ve been smoking, and how many you smoked each day.  Also, obstruction of the airways, especially with mucus, increases the likelihood of bacterial infections in your lungs after quitting smoking or during your smoking days.

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD): a collective term for disease effecting the lungs due to smoking (but can also be caused by other factors, such as long-term exposure to high levels of air pollutants and occupational causes), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Peripheral Vascular Disease (PVD): the narrowing and hardening of the arteries resulting in decreased blood flow in parts of the body other than the heart or brain.  This is caused by some of the chemicals in tobacco smoke that are absorbed into the blood stream and transported around the body when you smoke.  These chemicals make the walls of the blood vessels sticky, which allows cholesterol and other dangerous fatty material to build up on the inner walls of the arteries and clogging them.  Combined with the artery walls hardening (becoming less elastic), this all results normal blood flow becoming more difficult, making the heart work harder (which can lead to heart failure, amongst other things).  This reduced blood flow is most critical in the capillaries, which already have very small internal diameters, so you can imagine it doesn’t take a lot to block them completely.  Lack of blood flow to an area can cause that area to die, and gangrene is the result.

Increased Risk of Many Cancers: Besides lung cancer, smoking had been linked to the increased chance of many types of cancer, including breast cancer, throat cancer, some types of colon cancer, cancer of the tongue, cheek or lips, stomach cancer, urinary bladder cancer, and many more.

Many other minor and peripheral health problems such as: Alzheimer’s Disease, Lupus, Impotence, Blindness, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Acid Reflux, Snoring, Depressed Immune System, hair loss, increased face wrinkles, premature aging, halitosis, stained teeth, stomach ulcers, insomnia and more.

Okay, that’s enough of the doom and gloom. If you have quit smoking or are looking to stop smoking for all the above mentioned reasons, and now let’s work on making you healthier and happier. If you haven’t already, jump over to our main page and check out the great deal available on our flagship product, The Complete Lung Detoxification Guide.  With this program, you’ll not only get the best advice available for clearing your lungs after quitting smoking of all that toxic tar, but if you haven’t quit yet, or are having trouble quitting, we’ve got that covered too.  Also, you’ll find out of lot about ‘why’ you’ve smoked, which will help you understand and follow our tried and tested methods for staying quit, and living a healthier, smoking-free life.

Until next time,

stay well, stay quit, and lung-toxin free.

~William Renolds

The term ‘Third Hand Smoke’ has been getting a lot of attention recently in publications like Scientific American and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Everyone who’s got any sort of media access has heard of ‘Second Hand Smoke’ by now; that is, cigarette smoke breathed in by people other than the person smoking the cigarette (worst effected being children and babies) that is doing these ‘inadvertently smoking’ individuals damage.  But what you really want to know is, what could this ‘Third Hand Smoke’ be, and how does it affect me and my family?

What is Third Hand Smoke?

Third Hand Smoke is a term given to cigarette smoke residue, laid down over time, that can harm non-smokers that live or spend time in the area that was, or is continuing to be, smoked in.  Anyone who isn’t a smoker can smell when a smoker has been nearby, even if they weren’t smoking.  Stepping into an enclosed space with a smoker, like a lift, can alert a non-smoker to their destructive habit, even if they are not partaking at the time.   Similarly, if a non-smoker steps into a smoker’s house, they can tell immediately that the space has seen heavy smoking activity.  What they can smell is the residue of what could be years of tar deposition within that space.  On the walls, furnishings, and especially the carpets, every surface is coated in Third Hand Smoke.

There is some complex chemistry involved, but besides all the tar chemicals that are damaging your lungs every time you light up, some of the nicotine layered wherever smoking has taken place interacts with gasses given off by your gas appliances (heaters and ovens), or your car exhaust (if you’ve smoked as you drive), to create even more damaging carcinogens (cancer causing compounds).  So you can see that Third Hand Smoke can pose a real threat, but those worst affected are sadly infants and children.

Third Hand Smoke and Infants

Think about it.  Where do infants and young children spend most of their time?  On the floor.  Infants + carpets + years of smoking = bad news.  Infants and small children, due to their proximity to the floor and other surfaces, and their faster breathing, take in about twenty times (20x!!!) more of the particles containing Third Hand Smoking toxins than adults do.  Add to this the infant brain’s susceptibility to damage from very low level toxins, and you are likely to be doing your young children permanent damage.   As Jonathan Winickoff, a pediatrician at the Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center in Boston, says,

“…Studies in rats suggest that tobacco toxin exposure is the leading cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). We think it is [caused by] respiratory suppression…”

So you can see why quitting smoking, and detoxifying not only your lungs, but your entire living spaces, is vitally important for the health of not only yourself, but your family and friends.  Some sources recommend replacement of clothing, furniture, and even internal wall materials to remove all traces of these dangerous carcinogens, however there are several, less expensive actions you can take today to reduce this risk.

How to Get Rid of Third Hand Smoke

• Dry clean/industrial clean all your clothes, linens and towels. This can get a bit expensive but it’s cheaper than replacing them all.  If they still smell smoky (to a non-smoker, wash again or consider slow replacement).
• Wash down all the walls with sugar soap. This will help, but it may take several goes to get most of the Third Hand Smoke residue off them.
• Have all your fabric covered furniture steam cleaned. If it still smells smoky (to an non-smoker) it might be time to start replacing items.
• Wipe down all wooden and hard furniture with appropriate cleaning solutions. ANY surface can collect Third Hand Smoke.
• Steam clean ALL carpets and drapes.  Have all hard floors professionally cleaned. Carpets are a massive problem.  Again if they still smell even vaguely smoky it might be worth considering replacement when cleaning third hand smoke

Obviously, get rid of all those butts, ashtrays and all smoking gear.  Needless to say, you want to quit, stay smoking-free, and detox your lungs to make the process complete.

If this has got you worried about the damage your smoking habit may be doing to yourself and your family. Or perhaps you have been a smoker once and now realize just how harmful this habit is and continues to be, (tar and toxins take over a decade to clear out of your lungs!) click below to visit out main page and see what a lung detox can do for you.

Lung Detoxification – How to Clean Tar and Toxins Out of Your Lungs In Months not Years

Next time, we’ll talk about the phenomenon of ‘situational smoking’ and how your brain gets your ready to smoke in locations where you’ve regularly smoked previously.

Until then,

Stay well, stay quit, and get lung-toxin free!

William Renolds