The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : 63% of oath-takers revert to smoking: study

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Friday, Mar 14, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

63% of oath-takers revert to smoking: study

Ramya Kannan

“Only the will to stop helps to kick the habit”

CHENNAI: If you are the type of person who resolves to stop smoking and lets that resolve go up in smoke, count yourself in a majority.

In Tamil Nadu, according to a survey, nearly 63 per cent of oath-takers get back to their favourite nicotine stick again.

Health camps

In a series of health camps conducted by the Respiratory Research Foundation of India, 56.04 per cent of the 2,400 persons screened were smokers; over 15 per cent of them were women. Of the smokers, 62.8 per cent had stopped smoking for a variety of reasons, but got back eventually.

“Unless smokers have the will to stop, nothing can help them — neither nicotine patches nor drugs. Once they stop the drugs, they will get back to smoking,” says R. Narasimhan, chairman of the foundation.

The study was conducted in urban and rural areas all over the State over the last six years. Those who had quit smoking had done so because of pilgrimage (Sabarimala and Haj), surgery or a brief period of illness, Dr. Narasimhan says.

Doctors prescribe anti-smoking drugs to some patients to help them quit smoking, as these drugs bring down the need to smoke. After six weeks, once the dosage is over, they will start smoking, he explains. “The only ones who manage to quit are those who have the will to quit. Less than 10 per cent of our patients stop smoking on medical advice.”

The cigarette contains more than just nicotine, but that is the least of a smoker’s worries. “Each cigarette contains around 4,000 chemicals, many of them toxic. This includes acetone (used in nail polish removers), ammonia (found in cleaning fluids), arsenic (poison), formaldehyde (used to preserve bodies), tar and carbon monoxide,” he says.

The findings of a nationally representative study of smoking in India as a whole were published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine. The aim was to study the cause for adult deaths due to smoking. The study found that among men, 61 per cent of those who smoked could expect to die at ages 30-69, compared with 62 per cent women.

V. Gajalakshmi, co-author, and director, Epidemiological Research Centre, who arrived at the methodology for the study in collaboration with the University of Oxford, says the study found that smoking caused 38 per cent of all deaths from tuberculosis.

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