HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

“So doc, you mean, I can’t smoke at the cor­ner with my pad­na (part­ner) and keep the mask at the side?” A ques­tion that baf­fled me on the ra­dio pro­gramme, The Lunchtime Doc­tor, when the caller asked in a se­ri­ous tone. It brought to my sud­den re­al­i­sa­tion that aware­ness was still ne­ces­si­tat­ed, in 2020, dur­ing a pan­dem­ic; on Lung Can­cer, the risk fac­tors and the ben­e­fits of smok­ing ces­sa­tion.

- Lung can­cer is the biggest can­cer killer in the UK, and smok­ing high­light­ed as the prin­ci­pal risk fac­tor.

- Lung can­cer is the lead­ing cause of can­cer death and the sec­ond most com­mon can­cer among both men and women in the Unit­ed States.

- Each year, about 221,000 peo­ple in the Unit­ed States are told they have lung can­cer and about 146,000 peo­ple die from this dis­ease.

(As re­port­ed by CDC, 2020)

Smok­ing is a Ma­jor Risk Fac­tor

- About nine in 10 cas­es of lung can­cer are caused by smok­ing. Chem­i­cals in to­bac­co smoke are car­cino­gens. These are sub­stances which can dam­age cells and lead to Lung can­cer.

- Com­pared with non-smok­ers, those who smoke be­tween one to 14 cig­a­rettes a day have eight times the risk of dy­ing from lung can­cer. Those who smoke 25 or more cig­a­rettes a day have 25 times the risk. How­ev­er, the risk of lung can­cer de­pends more on the length of time a per­son has smoked. So, smok­ing one pack of cig­a­rettes a day for 40 years is more haz­ardous than smok­ing two packs a day for 20 years.

- Cig­ar smok­ing and pipe smok­ing are al­most as like­ly to cause lung can­cer as cig­a­rette smok­ing. Smok­ing low-tar or “light” cig­a­rettes in­creas­es lung can­cer risk as much as reg­u­lar cig­a­rettes. Smok­ing men­thol cig­a­rettes might in­crease the risk even more since the men­thol may al­low smok­ers to in­hale more deeply.

Sec­ond­hand smoke is AL­SO a risk

If you don’t smoke, breath­ing in the smoke of oth­ers (called sec­ond­hand smoke or en­vi­ron­men­tal to­bac­co smoke) can in­crease your risk of de­vel­op­ing lung can­cer. Sec­ond­hand smoke is thought to cause more than 7,000 deaths from lung can­cer each year. Most ex­po­sure to sec­ond­hand smoke oc­curs in homes and work­places.

- There is no risk-free lev­el of sec­ond­hand smoke ex­po­sure; even brief ex­po­sure can be harm­ful to health.

- Since 1964, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,500,000 non­smok­ers have died from health prob­lems caused by ex­po­sure to sec­ond­hand smoke.

What is THIRD­HAND SMOKE, and why is it a con­cern?

Third­hand smoke is resid­ual nico­tine and oth­er chem­i­cals left on in­door sur­faces by to­bac­co smoke. Peo­ple are ex­posed to these chem­i­cals by touch­ing con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed sur­faces or breath­ing in the off-gassing from these sur­faces. This residue is thought to re­act with com­mon in­door pol­lu­tants to cre­ate a tox­ic mix in­clud­ing can­cer caus­ing com­pounds, pos­ing a po­ten­tial health haz­ard to non­smok­ers — es­pe­cial­ly chil­dren.

Third­hand smoke clings to clothes, fur­ni­ture, drapes, walls, bed­ding, car­pets, dust, ve­hi­cles and oth­er sur­faces long af­ter smok­ing has stopped. The residue from third­hand smoke builds up on sur­faces over time. To re­move the residue, hard sur­faces, fab­rics and up­hol­stery need to be reg­u­lar­ly cleaned or laun­dered. Third­hand smoke can't be elim­i­nat­ed by air­ing out rooms, open­ing win­dows, us­ing fans or air con­di­tion­ers, or con­fin­ing smok­ing to on­ly cer­tain ar­eas of a home.

Chil­dren and non­smok­ing adults are at risk of to­bac­co-re­lat­ed health prob­lems when they in­hale, swal­low or touch sub­stances con­tain­ing third­hand smoke. In­fants and young chil­dren might have in­creased ex­po­sure to third­hand smoke due to their ten­den­cy to mouth ob­jects and touch af­fect­ed sur­faces.

Health Ef­fects in Adults

In adults who have nev­er smoked, sec­ond­hand and third­hand smoke can cause:

Heart dis­ease

For non­smok­ers, breath­ing sec­ond­hand smoke has im­me­di­ate harm­ful ef­fects on the heart and blood ves­sels.

It is es­ti­mat­ed that sec­ond­hand smoke caus­es ap­prox­i­mate­ly 34,000 heart dis­ease deaths each year among adult non­smok­ers in the Unit­ed States.

Lung can­cer

Sec­ond­hand smoke ex­po­sure caused more than 7,300 lung can­cer deaths each year among adult non­smok­ers in the Unit­ed States.

Health Ef­fects of Sec­ond­hand and Third­hand Smoke in Chil­dren

- Ear in­fec­tions

- More fre­quent and se­vere asth­ma at­tacks

- Res­pi­ra­to­ry symp­toms (for ex­am­ple, cough­ing, sneez­ing, and short­ness of breath)

- Res­pi­ra­to­ry in­fec­tions (bron­chi­tis and pneu­mo­nia)

- A greater risk for sud­den in­fant death syn­drome (SIDS)

Third­hand smoke is a rel­a­tive­ly new con­cept, and re­searchers are still study­ing its pos­si­ble dan­gers. In the mean­time, the on­ly way to pro­tect non­smok­ers from third­hand smoke is to cre­ate a smoke-free en­vi­ron­ment.

What can you do ?

You can pro­tect your­self and your fam­i­ly from sec­ond­hand smoke by:

- Not al­low­ing any­one to smoke any­where in or near your home

- Not al­low­ing any­one to smoke in your car, even with the win­dows down

- Teach­ing your chil­dren to stay away from sec­ond­hand smoke

- Be­ing a good role mod­el by not smok­ing or us­ing any oth­er type of to­bac­co

- Quit­ting smok­ing if you are not al­ready a non­smok­er

The ben­e­fits of QUIT­TING

As soon as you stop, you start to feel the ben­e­fits:

- Af­ter 20 min­utes: your blood pres­sure and pulse rate re­turn to nor­mal.

- Af­ter one day: your body's elim­i­nat­ed the car­bon monox­ide and your lungs start to clear out mu­cus and oth­er smok­ing de­bris.

- Af­ter 72 hours: your breath­ing be­comes eas­i­er. The bronchial tubes be­gin to re­lax and your en­er­gy lev­els in­crease.

- By two to 12 weeks your cir­cu­la­tion has im­proved through­out the body.

- Be­tween three to nine months lat­er: your coughs and wheez­ing will have im­proved. Lung func­tion could have in­creased by around 10 per cent.

- Af­ter 10 years: the risk of lung can­cer falls to half that of a smok­er.

Ba­si­cal­ly, “if to­bac­co did not ex­ist, lung can­cer would be a rare dis­ease,” says Aman­da Sand­ford, re­search man­ag­er at UK char­i­ty Ac­tion on Smok­ing and Health (ASH). A psy­chol­o­gist with Amer­i­can Can­cer So­ci­ety shared, “Giv­ing up smok­ing is the best de­ci­sion you'll ever make.”

Look out for HEALTH PLUS every Tues­day for more in­for­ma­tive and health­ful ar­ti­cles. If you have any ques­tions or con­cerns re­gard­ing this top­ic, please email Guardian­Health­Plus2020@gmail.com