By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Don't wait, quit smoking now
Health advice
Placeholder Image

On Thursday, we will celebrate the 36th Annual Great American Smokeout. Even after years of education and warnings, tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society’s website, www.cancer.org.
More than 46 million Americans still smoke, which puts them at risk for multiple health disorders and places others living and working with them in potential danger of these same health problems.
If you love, live or work with a smoker, you will want to familiarize yourself with the following information, all courtesy of the American Cancer Society, so you can help someone quit starting tomorrow — on the Great American Smokeout.
Responsible for more than 430,000 deaths each year, tobacco causes approximately 50 deaths per hour. Tobacco use is blamed in 90 percent of lung cancer deaths in men and 80 percent in women, making for a total of 213,000 people each year. Tobacco smoke contains more than 4,000 chemical compounds and more than 60 of those are known to cause cancer.
Tobacco use increases the risk of high blood pressure and blood clots, which can lead to stroke or heart attack. Smoking increases the workload on the heart, contributing to heart disease — the No. 1 killer of Americans.
It is known to contribute to peripheral artery disease or blockages in the arteries and stomach ulcers. Smoking leads to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and emphysema.
Environmental or secondhand smoke can be as harmful to non-smokers as it is to smokers.
When non-smokers are exposed to secondhand smoke, it is called involuntary smoking or passive smoking. Non-smokers exposed to secondhand smoke absorb nicotine and other toxic chemicals just like smokers do.
The more secondhand smoke you are exposed to, the higher the level of these harmful chemicals in your body.
Millions of Americans, both children and adults, still are exposed to secondhand smoke in their homes and workplaces despite a great deal of progress in tobacco control.
The only way to fully protect non-smokers from exposure to secondhand smoke indoors is to prevent all smoking in that indoor space or building. Separating smokers from non-smokers, cleaning the air and ventilating buildings cannot keep non-smokers from being exposed to secondhand smoke.
Making your home smoke-free may be one of the most important things you do for the health of your family. Any family member can develop health problems related to secondhand smoke. Children are especially sensitive. In the United States, 21 million, or 35 percent of children, live in homes where residents or visitors smoke in the home on a regular basis. About 50 percent to 75 percent of children in the United States have detectable levels of cotinine, the breakdown product of nicotine, in their blood.
Smokers have a hard time quitting because of one chemical in tobacco. Nicotine is very addictive. Within seven seconds of a person using tobacco, the nicotine hits the bloodstream and goes directly to the brain, releasing adrenaline and dopamine, which create feelings of excitement and pleasure.
Although it only takes five to seven days to get nicotine out of a person’s system, it’s very hard for most people to break the habit of having a cigarette with a cup of coffee, on a break or after a meal.
Scientific evidence shows that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. The 2006 U.S. Surgeon General’s report reached several important conclusions about secondhand smoke:
• Secondhand smoke causes premature death and disease in children and in adults who do not smoke.
• Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems and more severe asthma. Smoking by parents causes breathing (respiratory) symptoms and slows lung growth in their children.
• Secondhand smoke immediately affects the heart and blood circulation in a harmful way. It also causes heart disease and lung cancer.
According to Georgia Quitline statistics, the program can more than double a person’s chances of successfully quitting tobacco. Callers to Quitline are connected with smoking-cessation resources in their communities, social support groups, Internet resources and medication assistance referrals.
Since its inception in 2000, Quitline has provided counseling support to more than 380,000 smokers.  The toll-free number for the Quitline is 1-877-270-7867.
The American Cancer Society offers other free resources online at www.cancer.org that can increase a smoker’s chances of quitting successfully, including tips and tools for friends, family and coworkers of potential quitters to help them be aware and supportive of smokers’ struggles to quit.
Studies show the importance of social support in quitting smoking, as people are most likely to quit smoking when their friends, family and coworkers decide to quit smoking.
Popular online social networks such as Facebook and MySpace also are becoming support channels for people who want to quit, and American Cancer Society Smokeout-related downloadable desktop applications are available on these networks to help people quit or join the fight against tobacco.
 
Ratcliffe is a consultant to the Coastal Health District. You can call her at 876-6399.

Sign up for our e-newsletters
From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
8ccd7d661f85d37c8298791c9a56bec6e0f8449d4aea5c09c6ffcf527854f186
Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
Latest Obituaries