It’s hard to believe that it has nearly been a whole year since we last blogged about World No Tobacco Day (WNTD).  So many things have happened since then, and yet it feels like just a few weeks ago, and I’m sure that your lives have been busy in the past year too.  But have you taken the plunge and begun a new, healthier way of life?  If not, May 31^st might just be the perfect time to quit smoking cigarettes for good!

Ash trays with fresh flowers are a common symbol of World No Tobacco Day

When The Whole World Says No

One thing that can help you in taking on a major change in your life (such as quitting smoking and cleaning up your lungs), is knowing that you are not alone.  Knowing that there are thousands of people all over the world doing the same thing you are.  That is the beauty and the benefit of WNTD for the individual; that it can give you that final kick of motivation that gets you exchanging a destructive, dangerous habit for healthier, better ones.

World No Tobacco Day was created in 1987 by the World Health Organization (WHO), and 2011 is WNTD’s 23^rd year (actual observance of WNTD began in 1988).  Each year has a theme that follows through press releases, to promotional flyers, pamphlets and other media materials.  In 2011, the theme is “The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).” Now you might just be saying ‘wha?’ to this.  This year’s theme is not a particularly personal one (as it has been in past years), but rather, an important WHO agreement that attempts to persuade governments and corporations to agree on reducing the production of tobacco, and tobacco products, and to replace tobacco farming with other, healthier crops.  To quote the WHO:

“The world needs the WHO FCTC as much as, if not more than, it did in 1996 when the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an international framework convention on tobacco control. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death. This year, more than 5 million people will die from a tobacco-related heart attack, stroke, cancer, lung ailment or other disease. That does not include the more than 600,000 people – more than a quarter of them children – who will die from exposure to second-hand smoke. The annual death toll from the global epidemic of tobacco use could rise to 8 million by 2030. Having killed 100 million people during the 20th century, tobacco use could kill 1 billion during the 21st century.”

If you’d like to know more about this years WHO World No Tobacco Day theme, please follow this link.

World No Tobacco Day Can Be YOUR No Tobacco Day Too!

On a more personal level, WNTD is, at its core, a day where people that have a tobacco habit can forgo tobacco and tobacco related products for a whole day (Tuesday, 31^st May), knowing that tens of thousands of others all round the world are doing the same thing.  It is in this sharing that you gain power and motivation to do something positive for yourself, just as the WHO is working for positive change in the world.  By observing World No Tobacco Day, you are being a part of that, and if you can do it for one day, perhaps you can go for longer… and make not smoking a part of a new, healthier life for yourself and for your lungs.

And don’t feel left out if you are a reformed smoker, now living healthy and free of nicotine!  This is your day to celebrate the effort you have gone to in making your life healthier. One way to really celebrate this is to start something designed to improve your health even further.  I can think of nothing better than building on a day of no tobacco by consider our flagship product, ‘The Complete Lung Detoxification Guide’ Series.  Whether you have already quit, or in the planning stage of saying goodbye to nicotine for good, our Lung Cleansing Guide has all the advice you need to turn one day free of nicotine into a lifetime of better health, and to speeding up the removal of tar and mucus that clogs up a recently reformed smoker’s lungs.  Trust me; you want this stuff out of your lungs, and your life.

So consider quitting smoking on World No Tobacco Day 2012, you could be feeling a whole lot better and having a cleaner set of lungs as well!

Until next time,

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

William Renolds

day, there are news reports and journal articles about discoveries and developments in the fields of quitting smoking and lung detoxification.

Here are a just a few:

You Think Smoking Doesn’t Affect Your Life Expectancy – Think Again!

According to a paper in the latest edition of Journal of Tobacco Control, smoking is responsible for up to 60% of the longevity gap between men and women in most European countries.  That is, smoking is the main reason why men die sooner than women.  Recent World Health Organization figures on death rates were the source of the discovery.

In the UK, women live and average of four years longer than men – although, in recent years, the gap has been closing.  Second to smoking, alcohol accounts for 20% of the disparity.

So guys, quit now, clean yourself up, and have a better chance of living as long as your woman!

Science Finds Quit Gene

According to a very recent study, scientists have pinpointed a source of nicotine craving in the brain, opening up a new path toward drug treatments to kick the habit.  This is highly desirable, given that tobacco kills more than five MILLION people every year, and accounts for nearly one in EVERY 10 adult deaths, 90% of them involving lung cancer.

In experiments with mice and rats, researchers have mapped the functioning of a gene called CHRNA5, previously linked with nicotine addiction.  The gene controls a receptor – an entry point on the surface of brain cells – which responds to nicotine molecules.  With a normal version of this gene, anything more than a tiny dose of nicotine triggers a message to the brain which says in effect “stop consuming,” the scientists found.  Larger doses [of nicotine] unleash a sense of repulsion, similar to ‘bad tasting food or drink,” said Paul Kenny, lead researcher at the Scripps research Institute in Florida.  But the effect was quite different in mice in which a tiny sub-unit of the receptor, known as alpha5, had been knocked out.  The negative message was never sent, and as a result the rodents couldn’t get enough of the potent drug [being nicotine].

Researchers believe a similar scenario occurs natural in some humans, genome-wide screening studies have identified genetic alterations which impair alpha5 unit functioning.

So there you go.  Your genes effect how easily you get addicted to nicotine, and likewise make it harder for some to quit.

Nicotine Patch Prices To Be Slashed

It appears that the Government in Australia has decided that nicotine patches are effective enough to be added to that country’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.  Before this sensible move, the smallest pack of patches cost nearly three times what a pack of cigarettes cost.  With a doctor’s prescription, the price drops from between Au$100 – 140 down to Au$34.20, or $5.60 with a concession card.  Australian residents are eligible for up to 12 weeks supply of the quit smoking patches per year.  This is indeed good news.

If you don’t have the good fortune to live in Australia, our product, ‘The Complete Lung Detoxification Guide’ Series, has other, more cost effective ways to help you quit, stay quit, and detoxify your lungs as quickly as possible, saving you years of tar lung that increases your chances of cancer, emphysema and other related diseases.  Give it a try, you won’t regret it!

Until next time,

Happy New Year, stay well, stay quit, and lung-toxin free.

William Renolds

Smoking – The Habit That’s Trendy To Hate

Many smokers, before they quit, have related to me that while they were sitting outside having a puff, rather self-righteous people often came up to them telling them how bad their habit was for them.  Now despite the fact that this is accurate, there are quite a number of other societal ‘dependencies’ that don’t cop the same sort of vocal putdown. Take overweight people when they are eating a muffin while destroying their bodies with excess calories, or parents with more than two children for overpopulating the earth.  All these things are intrinsically bad for society as a whole, but only smoking is ‘fair game.’  And the only difference would be the 2^nd hand smoke issue.

It’s just as hard for a smoker to quit as it is for a food addict to do so, but one is considered discrimination, and the other a valid target.

Now you might be wondering, ‘what the? - are you actually defending smokers?’ Well not exactly … I’m raising the ‘finger pointing’ attitude that society is developing in this day and age, and how some people’s weakness is targeted while other’s is conscientiously avoided.

Outside the bar or pub or workplace, the ‘designated smoking area’ is becoming the last bastion of the smoking holdout.  Smokers are herded together like social outcasts, sharing this chastised habit, and maybe even making new friends through a shared experience.  Thus a smoker can end up with more smoking friends than non-smoking, and this can make it very hard to quit, when you take into consideration the social effect of peer pressure (ironically the same pressure that probably got them to take up smoking in the first place).

But if you go all out and make the jump from smoker to lung health advocate, what then?

New Opportunities Await

So you took the plunge and quit.  That’s great, but now not only your chemical, but your social world is changing.  Sure you can hang out with your smoking friends, but you’d better not go outside with them when they go.  The temptation will be high, and the Situational Smoking Effect (see yesterday’s post) may well come into play.  But just like you made friends with smokers when you smoked, you can now make friends with those that used to indulge, but now are on their way to healthier lungs!  Just like you shared the lows of dependence, you can now share the burgeoning highs of those discovering life after dependence on nicotine.

And let’s face facts, it’s becoming a non-smoking world.  And after quitting, you’ll no longer need to slink off during a dinner for a puff, it will spell and end to those sideways glares from people in the street, and there will be no more comments from supposedly well-meaning individuals, who are sure their telling you what you were doing to yourself made all the difference!  Smoking was once hip, and you joined the hip crowd, but the world has woken up to the cigarette company’s poisons, attitudes have changed, and you’ve moved with the times.  Right?

Your Willpower Is Like A Muscle

I’ve been informed there is a new Quit Smoking advertisement on Australian television (I will post a video if it pops up online later).  It has the distinction of being the first POSITIVE add I believe they’ve EVER produced.

“Your willpower is like a muscle; every cigarette you don’t smoke makes your willpower stronger.”

It IS a good message.  It’s something that all those who have moved beyond smoking must do to stay clean, but the good news is, the more you resist, the easier it gets, and this is basically true.

But for most of us, it takes a little more than just willpower to make a successful Quit Attempt.  Our product, ‘The Complete Lung Detoxification Guide’ Series is designed to give you all the information, tools and tips you need to make your next Quit Attempt your last, and if you’ve already quit, great, we provide some really pertinent tips to keep you healthy and avoid relapse, and – as the title suggests- all the best information on all the best ways to get toxins and tar out of your lungs – fast.

1 More Day!

We are getting really close now to the release of the updated Guides for 2011!  Over the first six days of the New Year, we’ll have a series of New Year’s Resolution Lung Detox posts, all related to the new release and to starting the adventure to a healthier new you.  Check back tomorrow for the sixth and final topic in the series; Exercise In The New Year – Vital To A Successful Lung Detox.

Until tomorrow,

Happy New Year, stay well, stay quit, and lung-toxin free.

William Renolds

Quit One Day, Smoking Again The Next?

The siren song of Nicotine, the chemical in cigarette smoke that makes your quit attempts more difficult, doesn’t just go away the day after you take your last puff.  As many a Quitting ex-smoker knows, it can take weeks for the cravings to subside, and then you still get the occasional pang from time to time, in places and situations where you used to smoke.  These cravings, considered by many doctors to be wholly caused by the absence of Nicotine in the subjects system, are now treated by NRT – or Nicotine Replacement Therapy, and other medicines that block the receptor sites that Nicotine attaches to in the brain.

But if NRT or other chemical treatments is all it takes, why are there still people who fail at a Quit Attempt?  Shouldn’t they all be successful, the first time they use these quit smoking aids?

Well it turns out that there is a lot more to it than just the chemical side of things, and that is an oft missed angle that our product, ‘The Complete Lung Detoxification Guide’ Series aims to cover.  In our product we cover NRT and other therapies – some of which may surprise you – to combat the chemical side of the equation, but we also cover the psychological dependence side as well.  This is something that many other products simply do not do.

The following is a taste of the sort of tips available in Book 2 – The Complete Quit Smoking Guide.

Being Ready For The Siren Call

So you’ve got your NRT or equivalent chemical substitute happening for you, you’ve passed your Quit Day, and you ARE doing it, you HAVE quit! But the itch is still there.  Why do you still feel like a smoke?  We cover this is great detail in our Guides Series, but it has to do with the way your mental ‘habit’ of smoking has effected your mind.  Here is one example:

It’s a pressure called the Situational Smoking Effect (SSE) – where you mind actually down-regulates your neurochemicals when you are in a situation or place where you regularly smoked in the past.  It works like this – when you first started smoking, you got a buzz out of it, but after a while, you had to smoke just to feel OK.  No more buzz, yeah?  Well that is your brain becoming ‘used’ to having a regular nicotine supply.  That is why you feel bad when you don’t smoke, and why it is not a simple thing to quit – until you train your brain to go back to the way it was originally.  But after you have ‘trained’ your brain to expect a nicotine hit in a certain place or situation, it gets ready for it by down-regulating your neurochemicals (it’s actually a throwback from a system to prevent a dose of a chemical from hurting you– nicotine is a poison in high does after all).  So there you are, having gone through the ‘tough times’ of nicotine withdrawal, and you’re feeling better, over the ‘worst of it,’ and on your way to healthy lungs.  And then you go to that place or are in that situation, and BANG, you get a pang, and it can sometimes be strong enough to break your resolve.  THAT is the SSE, and if you are not ready for it, it can beat you.

But Knowledge is Power, and our product contains effective tips to combat the SSE, and many other pitfalls of the Quit Journey.

2 More Days!

We are getting really close now to the release of the updated Guides for 2011!  Over the first six days of the New Year, we’ll have a series of New Year’s Resolution Lung Detox posts, all related to the new release and to starting the adventure to a healthier new you.  Check back tomorrow for the fifth topic in the series; Life After Cigarettes – The Social Impacts Of Quitting.

Until tomorrow,

Happy New Year, stay well, stay quit, and lung-toxin free.

William Renolds

What Motivates You To Undertake A Quit Program/Lung Detox?

Determining your motivations, and nailing down exactly why you want to Quit Smoking and/or Detoxify Your Lungs is really important to keep you working towards these goals. The exact reasons vary for each and every one of us, so if you go to the trouble of really understanding your own reasons, and then feeling them – desiring them – you will have a much greater chance of staying smoke-free and cleaning up your lungs – fast!

There are many possibilities, and slight variations – but in some way or form these motivations can be summed up by this basic premise: giving up cigarettes forever, detoxing your lungs and be healthier, feel better and live longer for yourself and your family. Your smoking habit has caused this damage, and has the potential to continue to do so, for up to 10 years after your last cigarette. That is why a Lung Detox is an essential part of any Quit journey.

Reaching That Critical ‘Activation Energy’

Often in any great effort to change, the first hurdle is the toughest. This can be referred to as achieving Activation Energy – that is, making the start that will bring about the improvement in your health (presuming you stick with it – see next section). With most decisions to Quit Smoking and Detoxify Your Lungs, the primary motivation usually comes from a place of anger and fear. Fear of an early, wasting death, possible loss of quality of life for years beforehand, and missing out on seeing your grandchildren, and possibly even your children, grow up. These are all quite rational and sensible fears seeing the dangers of smoking are so well known and publicized these days.

We recognize that motivation through fear has its place. It is sad but true that we humans are far more motivated to flee from danger than we are to move toward things that are good for us. However fear motivation is strong, but short-lived. It can help you reach that critical Activation Energy to get started on your journey to better health, but once this is done it tends to peter out, and those old, short-term cravings seem to have the strong pull they always did. This is because people just can’t maintain a fear response for long periods; we are just not designed that way, and if we try it has considerable negative impacts on both our minds and bodies.

Seeing It Through

So if negative motivation can start us off, but won’t get us there, what do we do then? The answer is to swap to positive motivation! This simple but often overlooked change in motivational methodology can easily be the difference between a successful quit/detox attempt, and waking up one morning with a packet of cigarettes back in your top pocket or handbag. By knowing what your own personal, positive, long-term motivations are to get healthy, and using techniques like Visualization/Positive Forward Projection and Positive Mental Conditioning to keep you feeling those motivations strongly and permeating through all the levels of your mind, your chances of a successful quit/detox attempt will skyrocket!

In fact, we think this is so important, it is the topic of our newest Booklet in the ‘The Complete Lung Detoxification Guide’ Series, Book 1 – The Complete Motivations For Lung Health Guide. Complied over several years, and drawing information from top authorities in the field, this newest addition to the Guide Series will help you stay the course, and reach your quit/detox goals.

3 More Days!

We are getting really close now to the release of the updated Guides for 2011! Over the first six days of the New Year, we’ll have a series of New Year’s Resolution Lung Detox posts, all related to the new release and to starting the adventure to a healthier new you. Check back tomorrow for the fourth topic in the series; Nicotine Dependence – It’ll Get You Back If It Can.

Until tomorrow,

Happy New Year, stay well, stay quit, and lung-toxin free.

William Renolds

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

third hand smoke - a danger?

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