The leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States is smoking. The health effects of smoking include cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, COPD, emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Smoking can cause cancer and then block your body from fighting it. The poisons in cigarette smoke can weaken the body’s immune system, making it harder to kill cancer cells. When this happens, cancer cells keep growing without being stopped.

Poisons in tobacco smoke can damage or change a cell’s DNA. DNA is the cell’s “instruction manual” that controls a cell’s normal growth and function. When DNA is damaged, a cell can begin growing out of control and create a cancer tumor.

Doctors have known for years that smoking causes most lung cancers. It’s still true today, when nearly 9 out of 10 lung cancers deaths are caused by smoking cigarettes or secondhand smoke exposure.

Did you know…

• Cigarette smoking causes more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States. This is nearly one in five deaths.
• Smoking causes more deaths each year than the following causes combined:
  • HIV
  • Illegal drug use
  • Alcohol use
  • Motor vehicle injuries
  • Firearm-related incidents
• More women die from lung cancer each year than from breast cancer
• Smoking can cause cancer almost anywhere in your body. Cigarette smoking causes cancer of the mouth and throat, esophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, liver, pancreas, voicebox (larynx), trachea, bronchus, kidney and renal pelvis, urinary bladder, and cervix, and causes acute myeloid leukemia.
• If nobody smoked, one of every three cancer deaths in the United States would not happen.

Evidence-based treatments to help individuals quit smoking include counseling and medications. McLeod offers a smoking cessation clinic involving one-on-one sessions to help you in the process of quitting tobacco. You do not have to be prepared to quit on the first visit, and resources for nicotine replacement therapy and prescription medications are available.

If you’re interested in quitting smoking, please contact your primary care physician and ask about our program or give us a call at (843) 777-7863.