Healthline Blogs
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Quitting Smoking While Living With a Smoker
Many of the patients we see for help to quit smoking also live with a smoker. They regularly comment that it is harder to quit when you live with a smoker. This sounds plausible, but does the evidence back it up?Professor Martin Jarvis of Universi...
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What does a tobacco treatment clinic do?
Most people who try to quit smoking do so on their own with little or no outside assistance. This doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do it. Nowadays most people also have access to a telephone quitline and over-the-counter nicotine replacement ther...
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New study shows that longer duration nicotine replacement leads to better quit rates
A new study was published in Annals of Internal Medicine this week, showing that having access to nicotine patches for 24 weeks leads to higher quit rates at 24 weeks (32%) that using the patch for the more typical duration (8 weeks), which led to...
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UK National Smoking Cessation Conference
Probably the best conference on smoking cessation over recent years has been the UK National Smoking Cessation Conference. The UK is probably the only country to have a national and fairly comprehensive smoking cessation service involving widespre...
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Time to quit….now
Today is one of the most popular days of the year on which to quit smoking. If you havn’t thrown away your last cigarette yet, there is still time to do it. While my personal opinion is that its best to do some preparation for quitting (finding ou...
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New study compares Chantix to the nicotine patch
We have already talked about the studies showing that Chantix (varenicline or Champix outside the US) is more effective than both placebo pills and Zyban (bupropion) for smoking cessation. There has also been one study comparing smoking cessation ...
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Carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a clear, odorless gas that is produced by burning any carbon-based substance. So when tobacco is burned and inhaled, one of the 4,000 or more chemicals that enters the body is CO. When the smoke is inhaled into the lungs, C...
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Why comprehensive tobacco control?
In my post of May 9th I described some of the reasons why it is unwise to cut funding for comprehensive tobacco control. But what exactly is it and why does it need to be “comprehensive”?The main reason for trying to reduce tobacco consumption wit...
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You CAN quit smoking
Most tobacco smokers say they would rather quit. Most have already tried to quit smoking before but have not yet been able to quit and stay quit. One of the effects of repeated unsuccessful quit attempts is that the smoker can lose confidence that...
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What Is Nicotine Withdrawal Syndrome?
“I was like a bear with a sore head - even the dog stayed out of my way - but after a couple of weeks the dog was back at my side and I knew I was over the worst”There are a number of symptoms which are commonly reported by people giving up smokin...
