The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : You can quit smoking if you really try

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 26, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

You can quit smoking if you really try

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, NOV. 25 . This year, at least a handful of men and women in Chennai will carry a message to their cigarette-smoking friends and relatives: the habit can be kicked no matter how long they have been at it; but, only if they make an effort.

At the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Day observed today by Rotary Clubs and the Respiratory Research Foundation of India (RRFI), the message was loud and clear— with every puff of tobacco, a smoker inhales 40 cancer-causing substances and 4,000 chemicals.

Success rate

Statistics indicate that 90 smokers die every day and eight lakhs die annually worldwide. Of all smokers, about 70 per cent think of quitting the habit but only two to three per cent succeed every year.

Back to shape

The benefits of quitting outweigh the hazards posed by continuing to light up. Even two puffs can endanger an already weakened human body but within eight hours of quitting the "nerve endings" that died during the habit grow; within a year the lungs get back into shape.

R. Narasimhan, RRFI founder-chairman,said chronic obstructive pulmonary disease affects smokers more easily than asthmatics. Blood vessels and air tubes in the lungs get damaged in COPD. Smoking is the most common cause of this disease, he said.

"Smoking is a silent killer because its symptoms are delayed. Smokers succumb to lung disease that continues to the end of their life. They come to the doctor after most of the damage is done."

WHO statistics say every day 4,000 children start smoking because they see their parents or adult relatives smoking. In the U.S., smoking is listed as the fourth largest killer. The figures in India must be high considering that more people here smoke, he said.

CIPLA, which manufactures drugs for asthma and COPD, has a booklet on how to live with the disease. The booklet has a set of easy exercises and the various inhalers the pharmaceutical company makes to handle breathlessness.

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