In an interview with the site « The health observatory", Bertrand Dautzenberg, Professor pneumologist at the department of pneumology of the Hospital of Pitié Salpêtrière in Paris returns on the effects of a dependence on tobacco and gives his advices to try to finish with the smoking.
INTERVIEW WITH PR BERTRAND DAUTZENBERG
From what dose does tobacco use carry a risk? ?
A single puff of cigarette has adverse effects on health. If half of lung cancer patients have smoked 400 000 cigarettes before they die, some cigarettes may be enough to hurt. It all depends on their effects on the cardiovascular system. The risks depend on the duration and amount of smoke each day. But one in two smokers dies of tobacco-related illness.
What are the substances related to cancer risk ?
There is benzopyrene which is one of the tars and each cigarette releases about 10 mg or nitrosamines, substances in tobacco but also smoke that are deposited in carpets and rugs and cause the smell of cold tobacco well known . There are also the aldehydes of which each cigarette contains about 0,1 mg. In addition, a cigarette smokes 1 billion particles that are deposited in the lungs of smokers, and also promote cancer.
Can you explain the phenomenon of tobacco addiction ?
A smoker who takes his first cigarette in the rising hour is primarily dependent on nicotine, and this dependency rooted in the "motherboard" of the brain is irremediable. The age at which smoking began also affects: starting to smoke after 18 changes "just" the circuit programming of the brain, then becoming "no smoker" is possible. But when you start at a very young age, that you smoke within one hour of waking up in the morning, the nicotine addiction is embedded in the brain and will not come out of it, at most you will be able to be asleep. : then we will speak of forgiveness but no cure. We will not talk about a "non-smoker" but an "ex-smoker". However, we must know that it is possible today to suppress the desire to smoke and to stop without suffering.
What means do we have? ?
To cure smoking addiction by suppressing the urge to smoke, you have to "stuff yourself" with nicotine. At first, I propose to avoid frustration at all costs, with nicotine substitutes and e-cigarettes to reduce the desire to smoke gradually. In fact, if you are on nicotine replacement, you feel the urge of a cigarette and that the lighting, you can smoke it completely, is that the dose of nicotine substitution is not strong enough. It should be noted that the number of nicotine receptors in the brain decreases if they are not stimulated by nicotine peaks. In most smokers, there is a spontaneous decrease in the level of nicotinic receptors in 2 or 3 months as soon as the nicotine peaks brought by cigarettes have been eliminated. But patches or vaping can absorb small doses of nicotine continuously, without "peaks".
