This Might Get You to Quit Smoking

It's hard to believe that anyone would start smoking in 2007. It's understandable that folks with a 40-year smoking history have trouble giving up the habit, that is, treating their nicotine addiction. When asked, the majority of smokers wish they could quit.

Smokers keep smoking.

The big health scares, of course, are respiratory diseases like emphysema and lung cancer. Both diagnoses are slowly-executed death sentences. The smoker's final years are spent short of breath with progressive loss of mobility.

Smokers keep smoking.

Cigarettes also play a big role in atherosclerosis and high blood pressure. That greatly increases the risk of stroke and heart attack - more miserable ways to spend your retirement (and your children's inheritance!)

Yep, smokers keep smoking.

Smoking cessation programs work so long as the smoker is motivated to quit for good, yet fatal tobacco-induced diseases appear to be an insufficient deterrent. Many smokers are in denial and believe "someone else" will have the bad luck.

Okay. So if a slow, inexorable decline in health leading to premature death won't stop a person from smoking, will anything else? How about blindness? How about spending your retirement unable to drive a car or read a book?

Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of acquired blindness in adults over 50. As the American population continues to mature the number of seniors going blind from AMD is expected to climb steadily. We've posted lots of blogs about AMD but this may be the most worthwhile.

Although the causes of AMD are felt to be multifactorial (heredity, environment, genetics, inflammation, nutrition, etc.), the only known AMD risk factor that can be controlled is smoking. Severe, irreversible vision loss from AMD is 4 times more likely to occur in smokers. Conversely, smokers who quit for 20 years reduce the risk similar to those who have never smoked. Smoking cessation will, on average, extend a person's life by 6-8 years. But here's the important part about that newfound longevity: statistically, those bonus years will more likely be spent without visual disability or shortness of breath.

Most health plans cover smoking cessation because it is cheaper for insurance companies to help you stop than to treat your subsequent smoke-related health problems. Even if you do not have insurance coverage, the daily $4 per pack cost of cigarettes could easily cover your smoking cessation treatment.

Will this information be enough to help you quit smoking once and for all?

Related Topics:

• 10 Overlooked Reasons to Quit Smoking
• Quitting Tobacco

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