Smoking and Asthma

Smoking is bad news for everyone, but especially for kids who have asthma. And yet between 15 and 20 percent of people with asthma still indulge in the habit, even though it makes them wheezier. Pregnant women who smoke increase the risk of the baby being asthmatic and having other respiratory illness. Tobacco smoke contains 4,000 chemicals, present either as gases or tiny particles.

You do not have to smoke yourself to inhale the fumes. Every time you walk into a bar you will get a blast of tobacco and if your asthma is severe you should avoid such places. Other people’s smoking habits can make your life a misery and if you live or work with a smoker there is little or no escape from smoke related risks.Children of smokers are more likely to have wheezy episodes and time off school than those with non smoking parents. It is generally worse when the mother smokes because many children spend more time with their mother than their father.

Keep your home smoke free. Remove all ashtrays and should a guest ask for one, explain that it is necessary to keep your home unpolluted, and suggest they smoke outside. Offer them a nicotine patch if they do not want to go out. It is important to have fresh air circulating throughout your home but beware of room fresheners as they also can be triggers. Open a window back and front of your home for a little while twice a day. Children are much more sensitive to cigarette pollution than adults. Seek out practical information on how to protect them against asthma using new and innovative methods. Look up a website with an alternative solution about how to cure asthma the natural way.

Teenage Smoking can be Reduced wtih Anti-Smoking Programs

Programs to reduce teenage smoking can be successful. A recent report for the Health and Wellness Trust Fund showed the percentage of middle-school students who smoke dropped from 5.8% in 2005 to 4.5% in 2007 in North Carolina. Their Trust Fund’s budget for anti-smoking programs is $ 17.1 million. This contrasts very sharply and very disappointingly with its neighbor, South Carolina (SC). For 2009, SC has budgeted NO money from its payments from the 1998 national settlement with tobacco companies. SC has budgeted $ 1 million on anti-smoking programs, but the source of these funds is the federal government.

More resources to help people stop smoking can be found at Smoke Free Homes. Note, the programs are free.

The effect of smoking on loss of lung function over time

Today’s column is dedicated to smokers. I just saw a patient that I have been seeing for the past 5 years. As my responsibility requires, I pointed out again, as I have at each visit, that her increasing symptoms, her declining lung function, and her increasing medication use are all the direct result of her smoking. Her health becomes increasingly and irreversibly affected. Her response was angrily to ask me why couldn’t I give her better and less expensive medications to reduce her symptoms.

To the left is a very famous study of the effects of lung function with increasing age in groups of people who did or did not smoke. Every medical student had to memorize this chart, because we were tested on it. Even non-smokers have a mild decline in lung function over time, because their lungs are getting older. Regular smokers have a much accelerated rate of loss of lung function, resulting in a much higher chance of symptoms, disability and finally death at an early age. Interestingly, if smokers stop, the rate of decline decreases to that of the non-smokers. That’s good news. The bad news is that lung function that is lost remains lost. The comment above is also stunning and true in my practice.

Conclusions: stop smoking or using tobacco products ASAP. Try not even get exposed to second-hand smoke from any tobacco products. These are inflammatory comments, especially since I’m writing this from South Carolina, whose economy is in part dependent on growing tobacco. But it’s the truth.

Soon smokers at least employed by the state of South Carolina will be paying higher premiums. It’s their choice.

If you have questions about smoking and accelerated loss of lung function, ask your doctor.