Smoking link to prostate cancer

Smokers can significantly reduce their risk of dying from prostate cancer if they quit the habit, according to scientists.

New research from a team led by experts from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, US, has found that prostate cancer sufferers who smoke have a 61% higher chance than non-smokers of dying of the disease.

The risk of recurrence of the disease was similarly high for smokers, said the researchers, who analysed medical data of 5,300 men diagnosed with the disease between 1986 and 2006.

Men who smoked were also found to have more aggressive tumours at the time of their diagnosis. Among patients whose disease had not spread when first detected, smokers were 80% more likely than non-smokers to die.

Findings from the study - the largest of its kind to explore the link between smoking and prostate cancer - are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Study leader, Dr Stacey Kenfield, said: "We found similar results for both prostate cancer recurrence and prostate cancer mortality. These data taken together provide further support that smoking may increase risk of prostate cancer progression."

The researchers also found that the death rates among prostate cancer patients who had quit smoking for more than 10 years were similar to that for non-smokers.

The same was true for men who had quit for less than 10 years, but were previously only moderate smokers.

"These data are exciting because there are few known ways for a man to reduce his risk of dying from prostate cancer," said Professor Edward Giovannucci, another member of the Harvard team.

"For smokers, quitting can impact their risk of dying from prostate cancer. This is another reason not to smoke."

Article source :http://www.nursinginpractice.com/article/smoking-link-prostate-cancer

Smoking Cigarettes Causes Accelerated Aging

One of the insidious things about smoking cigarettes is that it takes a long time for the serious health effects to be noticed by the smoker even though damage occurs with each cigarette smoked. By the time the smoker notices health issues, serious health damage has occurred; damage that could have been avoided if they had stopped smoking years earlier.

Fortunately, there are obvious external effects of smoking cigarettes that warn the smoker years in advance of the damage that is happening to them internally. The problem is the smoker doesn't realize that cigarettes are causing these external changes. This article will alert the smoker to an external effect of smoking: accelerated aging. This is something the smoker can see every time they look in the mirror. The change the smoker sees on the outside is a reflection of what is going on inside their body!

The False Sense of Security with Smoking

When you look at young smokers, you see people that don't believe smoking cigarettes is a serious health threat to themselves. These young smokers think that because they go to the gym, play sports and go about their daily routine without any obvious negative effects, they are somehow spared the health consequences of smoking. Sadly this isn't so.

It usually takes about 30 plus years of smoking to develop the really serious diseases that are associated with smoking cigarettes. For a 25 year old that has been smoking for 10 years, twenty years in the future is a long time.

Yet, that 10 years of smoking has already taken its toll. If the young smoker stopped ignoring the changes that cigarettes produce in their body, they would see that they are affected. If they realized what they were looking at, they would see the effects of cigarette smoking every time they looked in the mirror!

Do You Look Older than Your Years?

It's ironic that one of the reasons a 12-15 year old starts smoking is to look older. When they start smoking at this early age, they don't realize that smoking cigarettes will actually make them look older and BE older because of accelerated aging!

As a student of history and a photographer, I have always been fascinated by images from the past. I am grateful to all the photographers before me that took the time to preserve memories of day to day places and people that no longer exist; the everyday life that most of us take for granted. This preservation allows us to visually experience another time.

One of the things I have noticed when studying images from the 1920's through the 1970's is that the people look really old. When you look at a picture of a man and guess 55 years of age, it's shocking to find that person is only 23 years old!

What accounts for this great difference in appearance versus age? Cigarette smoking! Research shows it accelerates aging. The images from the era when 44% of the population smoked cigarettes clearly shows this phenomena.

Smoking Cigarettes Causes Accelerated Aging

Our skin is the canvas that displays the picture of our health status. Smoking makes a person look much older. The longer a person smokes, the faster they show signs of aging. Research finds that not only does smoking contribute to premature facial wrinkles but also wrinkling of skin in other areas such as the inner arm. Look at your arms smoking ladies!

Another effect smoking has on the skin is developing psoriasis, a very unsightly and unpleasant skin ailment. The higher the number of cigarettes smoked over a pack per day, the greater the risk of developing this miserable skin condition, e.g. itching and burning. You can always tell a smoker, other than by the odor which is another article, because their skin has an unhealthy tone to it as well as wrinkles.

If you want to see a clear example of the aging effects of smoking, look at pictures of famous people who smoked. One of the clearest examples is President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was noted for his cigarette holder and there are numerous photographs of him smoking! He died of a stroke, a health condition associated with long term smoking, in 1945 at the age of 63. Look at the pictures of him in the last few years of his life. Rather than 63, he looks more like 93.

You can find many, many other examples in old photographs from the era when 44% of the population smoked. Look at the picture, guess the age and then see how old the person really was when the photograph was taken. Smoking does age you!

Is it Male Pattern Baldness or Cigarettes?
Even your hair dresser won't know for sure! People are surprised to find that smoking affects their hair but research shows it does in several ways.

As a smoker of 10 or more years, do you find some gray hair beginning to show up? Most smokers do because research has shown that smokers are three to six times more likely to go prematurely gray than non-smokers. Another effect on the hair is that men who smoke are twice as likely to become bald as men who don't smoke. Does this just apply to men? Or is this a reason why older women who smoke have thinning hair?

Although the smoker can ignore their skin changes because it's gradual, they cannot ignore gray hair. However, the smoker just attributes this to getting older. They don't realize that it's not normal for people to start getting gray hair in their 20's and 30's. This is not a sign of getting older, it's a sign of smoking!

How Does Smoking Affect Your Mouth?

Obviously, that harsh, polluted cigarette smoke passes into the lungs through the mouth. Smoking can't help but stain your teeth which also adds to the appearance of being older than you are.

Of course, there is the awful "cigarette" breath as well. In addition to the bad breath, smoking also puts you at great risk for all sorts of dental problems, including oral cancer and gum disease.

Teeth and gum problems are another symptom associated with old age. Yet, this is happening to smokers early in their life.

Does Smoking Really Shorten Your Life?

In a word, YES! In addition to making the smoker look older, research shows that the smoker actually IS older.

A report in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed that men who never smoked lived an average of 10 years longer than their peers who smoked. YES, smoking really does shorten your life! Also, the non-smokers enjoyed a higher quality of life throughout those extra years.

Conclusion

You do not have to wait for 30 plus years to see the impact that cigarettes are having on your body. If you've smoked for 10 years or more, you can look in the mirror and see the effects today!

Facial wrinkles, gray hair and even baldness at a young age are the outwards signs of the internal damage caused by cigarettes. If you think the external body changes are simply the result of aging, you need to think again. These outward signs are more than cosmetic issues. They are a visible warning alerting you to the internal damage that smoking cigarettes is causing to your body. The sooner cigarettes are removed from your life, the sooner your body can begin to repair itself. Don't wait until it's too late, pay attention to these important signs today!

Article Source:  Smoking Cigarettes Causes Accelerated Aging

Smoking vs. Erectile Dysfunction - What Are the Risks?

New studies done recently have shown that there is a link between smoking cigarettes and erectile dysfunction. But how bad can it really get? There is still a lot to learn, but some new discoveries have been revealed. The more men smoke, the more they risk developing erectile dysfunction. Erectile dysfunction is the inability for a male to keep an erection long enough to complete satisfactory sexual performance. The recent study was done on over 4,700 Chinese men between the ages of 35 and 74 who had no blood disease and were sexually active in the past half year. This was the first study of its kind to be done on healthy men as opposed to those with hypertension and other problems which could potentially skew the tests.

The tests concluded that men who were smokers had over a 40% greater chance of developing erectile dysfunction than those who did not smoke. And the more the person smoked, the higher their risk of developing erectile dysfunction. When comparing the smokers with non-smokers, smokers who only smoked 10 cigarettes a day only had about a 27% likelihood while those who smoked 11-20 had 45% chance, and those who smoked 20+ cigarettes a day had a 65% greater chance of developing erectile dysfunction over those males who did not smoke. So in response to the recent study it can be estimated that nearly over 20% of erectile dysfunction cases can be attributed to smoking.

This study is very important as it shows even more effects on smoking today. Not only do those who smoke 20+ cigarettes per day increase their risk of developing erectile dysfunction by around 65%, but it has also been found that the risk does not go away after a man decides to quit smoking. There are no reasons to start or even continue smoking with these kinds of studies showing more and more problems with the habit. As a kid, the first cigarette can be quite a traumatic experience. After that first one, you start to feel quite a bit nauseas and dizzy and its not too much fun. Why is that? Because it is simply a person's body reacting to poison. Ultimately, if and when a person finally overcomes these natural objections they begin to risk even more than erectile dysfunction but also cancer, emphysema (breakdown of lung tissue), organ damage, and heart disease. It is estimated that every single cigarette that is lit up takes around 5-20 minutes off of a person's life.

Overall, everyone knows what kind of effect smoking has on our bodies. It is understandable that it is quite a heavy addiction that is very hard to get rid of for many people. But, for those who have not realized all of the problems that will inevitably arise through regular use, please remember that it doesn't just cause more wrinkled skin and yellow teeth, but severe lung damage, greater risk of illnesses, slower healing times when injured, and much more will also occur if nothing is done to help prevent this habit from being treated. And if you do want to stop smoking, there are plenty of resources online as well as with the American Cancer Society. For some, quitting cold turkey has really worked for them. For others, it may require a slower pace in order to quit. The possibilities are endless. However, if you are a smoker or considering it, consider all of the facts before taking that next hit. It will be the hit that changes your life for the better...inevitably.

By S. Michael Windsor