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27 Results for search "Smoking Cessation".

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Smokers with digestive trouble often blame their diet, stress, bad luck -- anything but their cigarettes. After all, the stomach is a long way from the lungs. Or so it seems. You won't read it on the Surgeon General's warning, but the fact remains: Smoking is hazardous to your entire digestive system. If you're a smoker, think of that pain in your stomach or burning in your chest as a wake-up cal...

In the Roaring '20s and beyond, smoking was promoted to women as a diet aid. "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet," one ad for Lucky Strike cigarettes proclaimed. Another Lucky ad, which appeared in 1934, shows a svelte woman on a diving board shadowed by an obese one. "Is this you five years from now?" the ad copy warned. Somehow, smoking, it was implied, would ward off the lovely woman's fat al...

With millions of people in the vise grip of a tobacco addiction, it's little wonder we're inundated with products and programs to help smokers quit. Nor does it come as a surprise that many are turning to alternative therapies in their fight to kick nicotine. Whatever method you try, nothing is going to work without some will power and a strong desire to stop. Whether you're trying to quit cold tu...

Okay, so the nicotine patches and gum didn't work. Somebody suggests hypnosis, but having someone experiment with your brain doesn't sound appealing right now. Maybe it's time to try a little group support. That's what Susan Gosden, did. Desperate to stop smoking, she found inspiration -- and release -- in a smoking cessation group held by Kaiser Permanente. Nine months after attending the 10-week...

There are all kinds of smoking cessation groups out there, from free sessions in church basements to tailored on-the-job programs in corporate conference rooms, in styles ranging from wide-open discussions to somber-toned 12-step programs. Some, like the Kaiser Permanente program, have a revolving clientele, with beginners trading anecdotes with veterans. You can find classes through your local h...

They say that cigarettes can be harder to kick than heroin. From what we hear that's true and then some. Because it's so difficult but so essential, we asked people we know to describe how they quit and what it felt like. Although quitting was a triumph for everyone, some still see themselves smoking in their dreams. One writer is hoping there's a smoking section in heaven where he can light up wi...

The irony was as inescapable as the smoke. Here was Taku Ronsman choking on secondhand smoke at work every day in a city health department, where she gave advice on how to create a smoke-free workplace. Hard at work for the Brown County Tobacco-Free Coalition in Green Bay, Wisconsin, she developed chronic bronchitis from the cigarette smoke down the hall. The building -- which also housed the Ame...

What's the difference between chewing and spit (or snuff) tobacco? Chewing tobacco ("chaw") is usually sold as leaf tobacco, and users place a large wad of it inside their cheek. Users, who tend to be older men, keep chewing tobacco in their mouths for several hours (the tell-tale bulge often gives them away). Snuff, which is much more common today, is a powdered tobacco that's usually sold in ca...

Certain sultry scenes from the great Hollywood classics have come to define our notion of glamor and elegance. Think of drop-dead gorgeous Lauren Bacall locking eyes with Humphrey Bogart as she takes a deep drag on her cigarette and exhales seductively, encircling him with smoke. Bacall may have been every man's ideal beauty in To Have and Have Not, but if she'd kept on smoking like that, she may ...

A little more than three years ago, somebody forced Joy Dewell of Bozeman, Montana, to quit smoking. Dewell didn't particularly want to quit, and she might not have ever done it on her own. But as soon as her son, Elijah, became a part of her life, she knew smoking wasn't an option. It's amazing how persuasive people can be before they're even born. After she discovered she was pregnant, Dewell,...

Why should I quit smoking? Because it could save your life. They don't call cigarettes "cancer sticks" and "coffin nails" for nothing. When you smoke, you're exposing yourself to more than 4,800 chemicals, including cyanide, benzene, and ammonia -- and at least 69 of those chemicals can cause cancer. Perhaps the best known is nicotine, an addictive compound that can make it ferociously hard to st...

I've never smoked. And while I'd like to attribute that to my innate wisdom and common sense, the credit truly belongs to my parents. They smoked like chimneys till I was about 9, then quit cold turkey. I survived -- barely. My dad, now 85, started smoking a pipe while he was a freshman at Cornell. "I did it mainly because it looked good," he recalls. It's a somewhat embarrassing admission for one...

A construction worker might blame his jackhammer for his sore back. An office worker might chalk up the ache to an uncomfortable chair. Fair enough. But if either person happens to be a smoker, there just might be a different explanation for his or her pain. In recent years, researchers have uncovered a surprising connection between smoking and back pain. In study after study, smokers seem to be m...

As any cigar lover will tell you, cigars and cigarettes are in two different leagues. Cigarettes come with a warning label; cigars come with a fancy box. A cigarette might last five minutes; a good cigar can last an hour or more. While cigarette smoking has steadily declined over the years; cigar smoking has become more popular, increasing by more than 33 percent between 1996 and 2006. And, of cou...

For Greg Spritzer, college and nicotine go hand in hand. A 26-year-old student at Montana State University, Spritzer never smoked in high school, and he manages to go cold turkey over the summers. But as soon as a new semester starts, he's back to six or seven cigarettes a day. What is it about college life that lures him to smoke? Stress? Peer pressure? "It's mainly boredom," Spritzer says. Of c...

What do corn silk, banana skins, and weeds have in common? People desperate for a smoke have used them all in improvised cigarettes. If something can be rolled up and smoked, you can bet somebody, somewhere, has rolled it up and smoked it. Most of these experiments don't get very far, but a few non-tobacco substances have managed to catch on. In fact, "alternative" cigarettes have become a boomin...

"Quitting smoking is easy," Mark Twain once said. "I've done it a thousand times." Maybe for you it's been dozens of times -- or only six or seven. But if you've tried and failed, it might be time to stop relying on willpower alone. Research has shown that a number of different stop-smoking aids, used in combination with counseling, can roughly double your chance of stubbing out that cigarette for...

Albert Einstein once remarked that pipe smoking "contributed to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs." Whether the observation is true or not, pipe smoking has had many other famous devotees, among them Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the fictional Sherlock Homes, who often disappeared into a haze of pipe smoke while solving his cases. Today, pipes are still a symbol...

Like any other business, tobacco companies are always looking for ways to make their products stand out. Some claim to offer superior flavor, while others try to make their brands seem rugged or sexy. But one strategy is conspicuous for sheer boldness and effectiveness: As concerns about the health effects of smoking mount, many brands are scrambling to appear safer than the typical smoke. "Light"...

Most cigarette smokers know the dangers of tobacco. After all, the Surgeon General stamps a warning right on the pack. But what about the people sitting next to the smoker? What about his friends and coworkers? His children? Secondhand smoke doesn't come with a warning label. If it did, more smokers might try harder to kick their addiction. According to the best current estimates, secondhand smoke...

Like many heavy smokers, Steven "Bubba" Ash would love to quit. "It's messing up my whole life," he says. In addition to draining his finances, his pack-a-day habit is killing his stamina. He used to be a serious runner, but he just doesn't have the lungs anymore. Bubba is 15. The high school freshman from Plains, Montana, first started smoking when he was 10. "Both of my parents were heavy smoker...

In the Jazz Age, flappers wielded foot-long cigarette holders as emblems of panache and independence. During World War II, monthly ads with Chesterfield cigarette girls featured such stars as Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth. Twenty years later, the U.S. Surgeon General linked smoking and death, but images of cigarettes as symbols of feminine freedom, mystery, and sex appeal were by no means extingu...

Two strangers' eyes meet over the brief flare of a freshly lit match. A jazz chanteuse croons through a haze of smoke. Around midnight, a bartender clears away the islands of empty cocktail glasses and lipstick-smudged cigarette butts left in the revelers' wake. For generations, immortalized in Edward Hopper paintings and Humphrey Bogart movies, inseparable from the sounds of Miles Davis and Sarah...

Everyone knows cigarettes can kill. By the time you reach middle age, you've probably known a smoker who has died or is dying of lung cancer. But the biggest threat from cigarettes isn't lung cancer or emphysema -- it's heart disease. Each year, in the United States alone, cigarettes are responsible for up to a third of all deaths from heart disease, according to the American Heart Association. O...

The ad starts with a classic scene of seduction: A suave thirtysomething man in a tuxedo approaches a beautiful woman in an evening gown. He lights a cigarette. It goes limp, and every man in the viewing audience winces. The voice-over says it all: "Now that medical researchers believe cigarettes are a leading cause of impotence, you're going to be looking at smoking a little differently." The te...

The hazards of smoking go far beyond lung cancer and heart disease. In fact, it would take microscopic print to list every potential warning on cigarette packages. Take this short quiz to see how much you know about the dangers of smoking. 1. Smoking raises the risk of many types of cancer. Which of these cancers has been linked to smoking? a. Cervical cancer b. Bladder cancer c. Pancreatic can...

Shortly after blood-sucking leeches went out of style, 19th-century doctors embraced an equally bizarre remedy for some ailments: cigarettes and pipes packed with tobacco. Amazingly, doctors often prescribed this "cure" to patients with asthma. According to the strange logic of old-time medicine, patients could breathe easier if they got enough healing smoke in their lungs. Setting the stage for...