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Breathe Deeply: Your Lung Health

The WOMAN Challenge Newsletter
June 10, 2008

It's not news - we all know smoking is unhealthy. But, did you know females who smoke are more than twice as likely as men to get lung cancer from smoking? It is also important to remember that smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke not only causes cancer, but emphysema, sleep apnea, asthma, and worsening of allergies. Yikes!

In this issue...

• WOMAN Challenge Tip
  
  
• Keeping Your Lungs Healthy – 18 and Older
  • Good reasons to eliminate your exposure to tobacco smoke
  • Lung health resources
    
    
• Don't Smoke! – 17 and Younger
  • How smoking affects your body
  • Lung health resources

WOMAN Challenge Tip

• We want to hear your story! Individuals or team members may share their successes, ideas, and comments with other WOMAN Challenge participants by submitting an Individual Success Story.
• Participants that are part of a team may submit a Team Showcase Profile, highlighting their team members locations, number of members, and a comment about their team.

These comments provide ideas and motivation for WOMAN Challenge participants far and wide!

Keeping Your Lungs Healthy – 18 and Older

About 1 out of every 5 women in America smokes and women are starting to smoke at younger and younger ages. An estimated 18.1% of American women 18 years or older are current cigarette smokers. We encourage you to learn as much as you can about smoking and share this information with your loved ones. Being smoke-free will help you to live longer with better health!

Good reasons to eliminate your exposure to tobacco smoke

• Smoking ages the skin, so quitting will mean fewer wrinkles.
• Women who smoke have a greater risk of infertility, miscarriage, premature labor, still birth, early neonatal deaths, earlier menopause and osteoporosis.
• Smoking while using oral contraceptives increases your risk of heart disease and stoke by ten times.
• Quitting also reduces your chance of getting cancer of the lung, mouth, larynx and esophagus, and other lung diseases.
• Arterial disease is also associated with smoking and kills more people than cancer.

Lung health resources

• What Happens When You Quit? – If you quit smoking right now, this tool shows how your body begins to heal immediately.
• Smoking & How to Quit – Learn more about smoking and get the tools to quit.
• Quit Smoking – Information and tools from the CDC to help you quit smoking.
• Secondhand Smoke – Learn what secondhand smoke is and how it affects you.

Don't Smoke! – 17 and Younger

This may not be the first time you've heard that smoking is not healthy for you. It can cause diseases like cancer and emphysema, make your bones weak, and keep your heart from working right. But did you know that some symptoms start as soon as you smoke your first cigarette—no matter how young you are?

How smoking affects your body

• Lungs – no surprise here, smokers have trouble breathing because smoking damages the lungs including coughing, phlegm, emphysema, and cancer.
• Mouth – tobacco stains your teeth, gives you bad breath, and ruins some of your taste buds.
• Skin – smoking makes your skin dry, yellow, abnormally wrinkled, prematurely aged, and smoke-scented.
• Heart – smoking increases your heart rate and blood pressure. If you try to do activities like exercise or play sports, your heart has to work harder to keep up.
• Muscles – when you smoke less blood and oxygen flow to your muscles, which causes them to hurt more when you exercise or play sports.
• Brain – smoking can make you anxious, nervous, moody and depressed after you smoke. Using tobacco also can cause headaches and dizziness.

Lung health resources

• Fast Facts about Smoking – Helpful facts about smoking.
• Straight Talk About Tobacco – It may seem like images of smoking, drugs, and alcohol are all around you. But, the truth is, smart girls everywhere are saying "No, thanks."
• Secondhand Smoke – Learn what secondhand smoke is and how it affects you.
• Smoking and How to Quit for Teens – Are you a young woman who smokes or do you know a young woman who smokes? Learn how smoking can affect a person's health now and in the future.
• Tobacco Quiz – Test your knowledge of tobacco with this quiz from the Tobacco Information and Prevention Service (TIPS) at the CDC.

Content last updated June 10, 2008.