Heavy smokers face newly discovered danger....

Today's post: Tuesday, 4-8-2008

We’ve posted many times about the dangers of smoking.

For most people cancer & lung cancer are the LITTLE risks of smoking. To be sure, not everyone who smokes gets those.

But, EVERYONE who smokes increases their homocysteine levels & adds immediately to their risk of heart attack, stroke, & all other cardiovascular diseases.

If you smoke, you can get tested for your homocysteine level with a blood test. And, we now know that to preserve good health, that reading should be 8.9 or lower. Smokers, even younger ones, are often much higher than that.

And, that’s just an easily measurable part of how smoking produces all these cardiovascular diseases. It does so in other ways at the same time.

We’ve also posted on how smoking reduces your lung function enough to make your lungs function as if you are much older than your calendar age even in the youngest smokers. That is also measurable.

So, even people who can be guaranteed they will never get lung cancer from smoking can get these two tests to see that they are already having their health seriously harmed by smoking. And, this is right now & for sure. No guessing needed.

Now there is even worse news for heavy smokers.

New research released last week found that a genetic factor causes some people to turn more often to smoking as a stress relief aid if they once start smoking. So they both smoke more than most people & often have trouble quitting.

But the worse news they found is that people with this genetic variation, instead of the small but much higher risk of developing lung cancer of most smokers, a full 25 % of such smokers get lung cancer.

Ouch !!

So if you have trouble quitting AND smoke heavily, see your doctor NOW.

The Zyban anti-depressant & nicotine replacement treatment now available does relive the depression this syndrome uses to drive the excess smoking & difficulty quitting.

Now, you know for sure smoking will likely kill you, do yourself a favor & check this out. This treatment plus enough motivation gives you a shot at quitting successfully.