May 31 is ‘World No Tobacco Day’, an annual awareness day sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 1987 to highlight the health risks associated with tobacco use and to encourage effective policies to reduce smoking and other tobacco use.
On the occasion Senior Consultant, Department of Medical Oncology at Jawaharlal Nehru Cancer Hospital and Research Centre at Bhopal Dr Sunil Kumar called upon action to quit tobacco.
He said that it is much easier to quit tobacco than thought. The physical addiction to tobacco lasts only three days. If you can get through that, you’re at least half way there.
If you also combine giving up with doing more exercise, you’ll replace the high you get from nicotine, with a high from natural chemicals produced in your body through physical activity. You’ll also give yourself a huge health boost in the process.
Dr Sunil Kumar further said, “If one takes the trouble to look at the process involved in the manufacturing and processing of tobacco, one will realize how lethal tobacco products are and the extent to which tobacco companies go to enhance addictive properties & hide toxic chemicals.”
Dr Kumar tells that “Tobacco products are the only consumer products that do not state what it contains. Cigarettes contain over 4,000 chemicals, out of which 200 are poisons and 69 cause cancer.” Dr Kumar tells that “Nicotine is addictive and tobacco companies add a variety of chemicals to tobacco to enhance addictive properties of nicotine. There are even moves to produce genetically modified tobacco plants with increased nicotine content. Tar is found in cigarettes and metals such as arsenic, cadmium which causes cancer. Vinyl chloride used to make vinyl products, on short-term exposure causes dizziness, headaches and tiredness.
long term exposure can lead to cancer and liver damage.
Creosote, a component of tar when inhaled can cause irritation of the respiratory tract. Formaldehyde, a preservative substance used on dead bodies is also cancer causing.
Polonium 210, a radioactive substance causes cancer in the liver and bladder, stomach ulcers, leukaemia among other diseases.”