But I don't want an outpouring of concern and support. What I want is for Kossacks to learn from my father's mistakes and take their health seriously. My father is 62 years old. Here are the facts:
1. He's smoked a pack of cigarettes a day since he was a teenager.
2. He's at least 50 lbs (maybe 75 lbs) over a healthy weight.
3. His regular and favorite meals are all unhealthy: high fat, few vegetables....
4. I've seen him exercise maybe 5 times in 30 years.
His heart attack doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that he got to 62 before he had one. Don't let this happen to you. Don't let this happen to your loved-ones. Think about your health and take action. There's a lot to be said about diet and exercise, but I want to talk to people today about smoking.
Let's not mince words here. Smoking f**cking kills people. Lots of people. The American Heart Association estimates that smoking accounts for 440,000 out of the 2.4 million annual deaths that occur in the US. That's equal to 147 September 11 attacks occuring every year, year-in year-out.
The leading cause of smoking-related death isn't lung cancer, it's cardiovascular disease, heart attacks and strokes just like my father's. 30% of all cardiovascular disease is estimated to be smoking-related. Smoking also doubles the risk of ischemic stroke.
If the cardiovascular disease was the only adverse effect of smoking, it would be pretty serious, but that's just the start. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the US. And smoking is the cause of 87% of lung cancer cases. Look at where the Lung Cancer deaths occur
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Not surprisingly the places where the most lung cancer occurs are also the places where the most people smoke.
Smoking even raises your risk of blindness by raising the risk of macular degeneration.
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/...
Smoking also compounds bad habits related to diet and exercise. One of the reasons that my father has so rarely exercised is that he would get short of breath after even walking. He's also had serious problems with his teeth and gums for years. Whitening toothpaste may get the smoking stains off your teeth, but your gums are screwed. He's probably spent more hours in the periodontist's chair than any person could bear.
http://www.ada.org/...
So, what can you do about it?
1. STOP SMOKING. This is the hard one. When I was younger, I saw my father try to quit smoking several times and it was a pretty ugly affair. Sometimes we wanted him to start again because he'd become so irritable when he quit smoking that he was impossible to live with. People can quit though and quitting dramatically reduces the risks associated with smoking. In 2004, there were 44.5 million smokers in the US and 45.6 million ex-smokers. Quitting is difficult but it can be done, especially with the tools and advice which are available today. There's a lot of information on how to quit.
http://www.ffsonline.org/
http://www.cdc.gov/...
http://www.cancer.org/...
The American Cancer Society even has a phone number you can call to get help. 1-800-ACS-2345
Smoking doesn't just hurt your own health though. If you're smoking indoors or in confined spaces with others present, then you are hurting other people as well. You can read some of the highlights from the Surgeon General's report here.
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/...
There's even a political argument to be made here. Tobacco companies give the vast majority of their political donations to the Republicans. There is no way to smoke and still "buy blue".
2. DON'T START SMOKING. Nine out of ten smokers start before they are 18. I can't say I understand why people start smoking, and it's hard to convince someone who is 16 that a heart attack at age 62 is significant, but it's not just the heart attack that matters. Your health is being damaged for years and years. The heart attack is just the last sign of the damage that has been done.
3. Have an intervention with your loved ones who smoke If people can have interventions regarding heroin and cocaine addiction, I don't see why it shouldn't be possible with regard to nicotene addiction. Your loved-ones are slowly killing themselves by smoking. It's important to do something about it. I regret not having been more supportive of my father when he tried to quit and not nagging him about smoking for all these years. My brother smokes though, and I'm not going to let it slide anymore.
4. Support legislation that protects people from passive (or second-hand) smoking. The Surgeon General just announced the finding that there is no safe level of tobacco smoke in the air.
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/...
But in a majority of states, there are still workers who have to breathe tobacco smoke to make a living. That's just not right. No one should have to damage their health to feed their families. As people who care about workers and workplace safety, this shouldn't be a difficult issue for us. This isn't an issue that only resonates in some states either. California, Delaware, New York, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Montana, Vermont, Washington, Louisiana, New Jersey, Utah, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Hawaii, Arkansas, and North Dakota, as well as Puerto Rico and Washington DC, have passed smokefree restaurant legislation. Some of these states have made all workplaces, including bars, smokefree as well. Even restaurant owners are starting to come around. The Pennsylvania Restaurant Association recently announced that they endorse comprehensive clean indoor air legislation.
5. Support legislation that makes it harder to smoke or start smoking. There are a lot of things that would fall under this rubric.
a. Supporting workplace smoking bans is one thing, since it not only protects workers and bar patrons, but also means non-smokers are less likely to start smoking because they think that smoking and drinking go together and ex-smokers are less likely to relapse if they aren't put in environment with smokers.
b. Support higher taxes on cigarettes. I know that people say that cigarette taxes are regressive, but they do have a disproportionate effect on youth smoking. Kids don't have enough money to spend $5 a day on cigarettes. If you consider the amount of money a non-smoker saves over a lifetime of not smoking by not starting, I'm not sure cigarette taxes are really regressive anyway.
c. Support more serious warnings on cigarette packages and stricter labelling requirements. One of the things I'm hoping a Democratic Congress will do is support serious warnings on packs of cigarettes and requirements that cigaretts be labelled in generic-looking packages. Anything that decreases the "Kewl" factor of cigarettes is beneficial.
6. Support groups like the American Lung Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
http://www.lungusa.org/
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/
My father is scheduled for bypass surgery in the next few days. I'm praying (in a non-religious way) that he makes it and that he'll start to take his health seriously and I'm hoping that other people don't wait until they have a heart attack before starting on a path to health.
