Kicking the habit

The risk of developing serious problems that damage your eyes, feet, legs and kidneys doubles if you smoke and have diabetes.

Smoking narrows your blood vessels, which is a huge problem for people with diabetes as it can cause serious diabetic complications that lead to loss of sight and limbs.

Smoking doubles your risk of heart disease and stroke, and causes many different types of  cancer.  So let’s focus on the benefits of quitting here. 

The cost of smoking: your money or your life?

Being smoke free can prevent 15 different types of cancer. Smoking is bad for our health and costs lots of money, but if you think the risks are worth it, here are some hard facts:

• On average, smokers die 10 years younger than non-smokers
• Smoking burns a hole in your pocket that just keeps getting bigger. For instance, if you smoke 10 cigs a day in 2019, you’re spending about £28.00 per week, which is nearly £14,000 over 10 years – and could be much higher as the cost keeps going up.
• Teenage smokers get more asthma and chest problems than non-smokers, they also have poorer health and are less fit.
• Smoking ages you – smokers get wrinkles much earlier than non-smokers and you're more likely to go grey and lose your hair.
• It’s not just about you, though, as you could be harming your loved ones: passive smoking damages the health of those who are close to you.

There are no benefits to smoking

People often say that smoking is relaxing, but smoking actually stresses you out more because the nicotine in cigarettes is a stimulant so it can’t calm you down. OK, you may feel more relaxed as you’re smoking, but that’s because in that moment you’re feeding your itch for nicotine.

The reality is that as soon as you put out a cigarette your stress levels go up to where they were before.  

Smoking doesn’t stop you from putting weight on and you won’t put on weight just because you stop smoking.

And don’t think that just a few cigarettes  won’t do you any harm. Not smoking much or only smoking for a short time does matter because even your first cigarette hurts your body.  Every cigarette you have puts gases and chemicals that cause cancer and other diseases into your body. Your health improves the moment you stop.

Kicking the smoking habit

The good news is that you can get help if you want to kick the habit today. Don’t be afraid to tell your healthcare team that you smoke, as they’ve helped hundreds of people like you before.

Ask your GP about stop smoking programmes in North West London or search for stopping smoking programmes in your area now.

The NHS national programme, called “Smokefree” is a website and an app that has helped millions of people quit. Both are free and give you a personal plan on how to stop, including a way to calculate how much money you save and how your health improves the longer you’ve stopped. 

What about shisha pipes? 

Shisha pipes use tobacco sweetened with fruit and fruit flavoring. Wood, coal, or charcoal is burned in the shisha pipe to heat the tobacco and create the smoke because the fruit syrup or sugar makes the tobacco damp.

When you smoke shisha, you are breathing in smoke which releases  toxins including carbon monoxide and heavy metals –reducing your body’s ability to carry oxygen around in your blood.

Shisha tobacco contains tabacco, nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide and heavy metals, such as arsenic and lead. As a result, shisha smokers are at risk of the same kinds of diseases as cigarette smokers, such as heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease and problems during pregnancy.

The average shisha-smoking session lasts an hour and research has shown that in this time you can inhale the same amount of smoke as from more than 100 cigarettes.