Stoptober is Back! Medical Specialists® Pharmacy urge the nation's smokers to join the annual stop smoking attempt

Let’s be honest – there is never a bad time to stop smoking. Smokers can kick the habit on any given day or week, but if there is an ideal time to try and with a boosted chance of giving up for good, the month of October is a great time of the year to start.

The 1st October will see the launch of what is now a regular addition to the calendar - the annual 28-day Stoptober campaign, created and funded by Public Health England as an effective drive to encourage more of the nation to kick smoking into touch.

Last year saw over a quarter of a million smokers make the pledge to try and stop smoking, with a huge increase in the number of patients coming to Medical Specialists® Pharmacy for information about obtaining the popular smoking cessation treatment Champix (Varenicline), and the pharmacy expects a similar sales surge for 2015, if not much bigger.

Data from the Office for National Statistics show that 18.7% of adults in the UK smoked in 2013 - down from 19.8% in 2012. After the conclusion of last year’s Stoptober, Public Health England say its latest figures indicated that smoking rates had continued to fall during the last few months of 2014.

A 4 week duration is used for the Stoptober challenge due to the fact that research has shown those who manage to abstain from smoking for 28 days are actually 5 times more likely to quit for good. In addition, it is often said for every 28 days a smoker quits for, they could add an extra week onto their lifespan.

At Medical Specialists®, we know that making the leap into tobacco-free territory can be difficult and stressful, but those deciding to stop smoking should realise they are not alone. Literally thousands of others have made the same pledge to stop too, which should provide a welcome boost to willpower.

In addition, those that decide to sign up to this year’s Stoptober will receive a personal helping hand in their efforts, courtesy of some of the UK’s favourite comedians, such as Al Murray, Bill Bailey, Rhod Gilbert and Shappi Khorsandi. Quitters that register for the service can expect to be inundated with light-hearted and humorous messages of support and encouragement, sent straight to the participant’s phone and email during the 28 day period of Stoptober.

Comedian Rhod Gilbert decided to throw his support behind the annual Stoptober campaign after being a smoker himself for 25 years, toiling for 23 years of those attempting to quit. He says: “I know first-hand that it can be hard to find the motivation to quit, but Stoptober is the perfect time to give it a go,” he says.

There are countless benefits to ditching cigarettes. For example, quitters can expect to notice many physical improvements such as a boosted sense of taste and smell, increased energy levels, reduced signs of facial aging and wrinkles, whiter teeth, fresher breath and even better sex due to the improved blood flow and stronger erections for men.

Moreover, people that successfully quit smoking will have much serious longer term benefits, such as a lower risk of suffering from heart disease and a wide range of cancers such as lung cancer, not to mention protecting the health of those in the surrounding vicinity as there will now be no secondhand smoke for them to inhale.

Despite the fact smoking rates have come down in recent years, smoking remains the biggest factor behind preventable illness and premature death in the country - responsible for nearly 80,000 deaths per year in England alone.

Smokers aged 18 or above that want to quit, can use the support Stoptober as a foundation for doing so, along with help from Medical Specialists®.

Begin the road to a smoke-free future today by obtain the smoking cessation medication Champix following an online consultation with one of Medical Specialists’ GMC registered doctors. Champix works out from as little £26.95* a pack. The treatment works by mimicking the effect of nicotine on the body, reducing the urge to smoke and relieving withdrawal symptoms. It can also decrease the enjoyment you experience of smoking if you are still smoking whilst on the treatment.

(*based on private prescription price)

Quit smoking for 15 years…and it could be like you had never smoked!

All smokers take note: new research has shown that those successfully quit smoking for a sustained period of 15 years, can massively decrease the chance of suffering with heart failure or even dying.

U.S. Scientists made the remarkable discovery that people who stopped smoking almost two decades previously, had a comparable risk to those that had never smoked before.

Despite the findings clearly being a positive for all smokers across the globe, heavier smokers – i.e. those that had gone through at least a packet of cigarettes each day for 32 years or more – still had a slightly increased risk of health problems.

However, lead researcher Dr Ali Ahmed, from the Washington DC VA Medical Center, is pretty clear with the message…people either need to cut down on their smoking, stop smoking as early as they can, or simply never start smoking.

He commented: “While all individuals who quit smoking will benefit from a decreased chance of death, to achieve the full complement of health benefits of smoking cessation of one who has never smoked, smokers need to smoke less and quit early, and for those are not smokers – never start smoking.”

The findings were extracted via the most recent data from the Cardiovascular Health Study, which comprised of 2,556 people that had claimed to never smoked, 629 present smokers and 1,297 previous smokers. Every participant in the study was aged 65 or over, and 312 of the previous smokers admitted to heavy cigarette usage – smoking at least one pack daily for 32 years or more.

After a 13 year follow-up evaluation, the proportion of never smokers and previous smokers who had suffered heart failure, was found to be 21% in both groups. Within the group of former smokers that had consumed one pack per day for at least 32 years, nearly 30% suffered heart failure.

Comparison of mortality risks among present smokers and heavy smokers to never smokers was an interesting find. Researchers accounted for factors such as age, sex, race, education, other health conditions and medications, discovering that present smokers were around twice more likely to die from other diseases in comparison to those that had never smoked, and previous smokers were found to be 26% more likely to die compared to the never smokers.

Dr Ahmed told Reuters: “When one smokes, it induces atherosclerosis, or the buildup of plaque in the arteries. However, when one quits smoking, the buildup of plaque and risk of blood of clots decreases, allowing one’s cardiovascular risk to return to normal over time.”

Atherosclerosis is the medical term used when a person’s arteries have become narrower and harderned, usually caused by a high level of ‘bad’ low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol.
Statins like atorvastatin (Lipitor) and rosuvastatin (Crestor) are currently taken by around 7 million people in Britain, and work to decrease rates of LDL cholesterol by reducing the production of LDL cholesterol inside the liver. It is dangerous to have high rates of LDL cholesterol as this causes the atherosclerosis, resulting in a higher risk of heart attack, stroke and coronary heart disease.

Medical Specialists® inundated with requests for smoking cessation treatment in the run up to No Smoking Day

Medical Specialists® Pharmacy are proud to support this year’s national No Smoking Day, which will be taking place on 11 March.

For those not aware of its origins, No Smoking Day is an annual campaign that has been running since Ash Wednesday in 1983, when it was known as ‘Quit for the Day’, although despite the name, it is obvious this one day is intended to be a sampler / springboard for a longer-term and more permanent quitting of smoking.

The campaign was initially led by a charity bearing the same name that operated in London with only four full-time staff, until it was then merged with the British Heart Foundation in 2011. The funds are provided by coalition of governmental and voluntary sector organisations looking to improve the nation’s health.

Each year there are an estimated one million smokers that use No Smoking Day to try and stop smoking. The No Smoking Day charity has previously claimed that about 1.5 million smokers have successfully managed to quit for good since its launch 32 years ago.

After experiencing a recent surge in the requests for smoking cessation treatment Champix, Medical Specialists® believe that this year, there could be potentially significantly more than just one million people trying to give up the cigarettes in Britain.

What the campaign doesn’t do is attempt to harass or force smokers into immediately stopping for good – the day is primarily for those smokers that want to quit, in addition to providing support prior to and after No Smoking Day, with the British Heart Foundation website offering information on national helplines, local stop smoking services and the chance to join a support forum.

The forum is an excellent way to get in touch with thousands of other fellow smokers looking to quit and lets people know they are not alone in their efforts to stub out. The forum is even moderated by ex-smokers that have successfully given up themselves.

As the name of the charity would suggest, the British Heart Foundation use their knowledge and resources to boost the public’s heart health, and provide information on the damage smoking does to the body, even detailing some of the toxic chemicals that smokers inhale with each passing cigarette – it certainly makes for grim reading.

The fact remains that smokers are at double the risk of suffering from a heart attack compared to people that have never smoked and smoking is the main cause of a multitude of cancers and lung disease.

Even with these health risks, some people still refuse to stop smoking. This could explain why last year the British Heart Foundation chose to reach out to smokers in other ways – namely highlighting the financial benefits of stopping smoking.

With the current financial climate, it is simply unfeasible to be regularly forking out £10 for a packet of cigarettes and skimp on food or even withhold paying bills.

The British Heart Foundation have even detailed what people could treat themselves to with the money saved from not buying cigarettes*.

For example, after…

1 Day – £8.50: two movie rentals / a new lipstick / download a new album
1 week – £59.50: a family cinema trip/ a pair of shoes / a meal for two
1 month – £255: a shopping spree / Premiership football tickets / a weekend break
3 months – £765
6 months – £1,530: a leather suite/ a home cinema / a top of the range bicycle
1 year – £3,102.50: a new kitchen / designer jewellery / holiday of a lifetime

*Figures based on a 20-a-day smoker paying £8.50 per packet of 20 cigarettes.

And if that wasn’t music to the ears of smokers, by quitting smoking they will earn extra pocket money on top of that already saved! Ex-smokers may now suddenly discover that life, home and car insurance are cheaper due to then being a non-smoker.

Medical Specialists® wish all smokers the best of luck for next weeks No Smoking Day. There is plenty of help at hand, from the British Heart Foundation’s ‘I want to quit’ page, their links to a forum and various nationwide stop smoking services, to smoking cessation treatment from Medical Specialists® like Champix, for a more longer term quitting strategy. This treatment can be obtained by an online consultation with one of our GMC-registered doctors, or by sending us a private prescription.

Cancer patients could be more nicotine dependent with e-cigarettes

A new study into e-cigarettes has put further fuel onto the fire about just how useful a tool they are in helping smokers successfully quit smoking, after researchers found cancer patients who used c-cigs to try and stop smoking actually ended up more addicted to nicotine.

The findings have been published online by the journal Cancer, and will undoubtedly spark further doubts regarding the devices  that have come under scrutiny from the World Health Organisation in recent years, who want tighter regulations on them and a banning of them being used indoors.

The new study was conducted by researchers at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York City, who assessed 1,074 cancer patients who were smokers and that had signed up to stop smoking schemes at cancer centre’s between 2012 and 2013.

The researchers discovered a three-fold rise in e-cigarette use from 2012 to 2013 – increasing from 10.6% to 38.5%.

When the patients’ enrolled into the smoking programme, the researchers determined that those also using e-cigarettes were more dependent on nicotine compared to those not using them, had tried to quit smoking on more occasions, and had a higher risk of developing cancer of the lungs, head, or neck.

During a follow-up assessment, it was found that seven-day abstinence rates were comparable with both e-cigarette users and non-users. Researchers found rates of 44.4% for e-cigarette users and 43.1% for non-users. By the time the study came to a conclusion, those using e-cigarettes were just as likely as non-users to be smoking regular cigarettes.

Dr Jamie Ostroff, lead researcher said: “Consistent with recent observations of increased e-cigarette use in the general population, our findings illustrate that e-cigarette use among tobacco-dependent cancer patients has increased within the past two years.”

She admitted further studies would be needed due to limitations with this one, saying: “Controlled research is needed to evaluate the potential harms and benefits of e-cigarettes as a potential cessation approach for cancer patients. In the meantime, oncologists should advise all smokers to quit smoking traditional combustible cigarettes, encourage use of FDA-approved cessation medications, refer patients for smoking cessation counselling, and provide education about the potential risks and lack of known benefits of long-term e-cigarette use.”

One such smoking cessation treatment is Pfizer’s highly popular Champix, of which Medical Specialists® Pharmacy have been inundated with requests for recently in the run up to Stoptober on 1 October.

Stoptober is an annual campaign run by Public Health England, which challenges all smokers to abstain for 28 days. The idea for 28 days of no smoking is that it is believed smokers are 5 times more likely to stop smoking if they can last the duration of the challenge. Keep checking the Medical Specialists® website for more information about Stoptober in the run up to it, including more to get involved and support available for smokers looking to quit.

Fear of weight gain preventing smokers from quitting

Most people are in agreement that smoking is bad. There are thousands of toxic chemicals contained within just a single cigarette that can cause a variety of different types of cancer and heart disease, not to mention the soaring cost of actually buying the cigarettes at a time of financial struggle in Britain.

However, a new study suggests some people are forgetting how dangerous smoking is to themselves and those around them (via secondhand smoke) and are reluctant to quit smoking due to fear of piling on weight after they have stopped. Nicotine serves as an appetite suppressant, so after quitting smoking it is fairly normal for your appetite to increase and nicotine also raises your metabolic rate – heavy smokers can burn as many as 200 extra calories per day.

Researchers from the Penn State College of Medicine assessed 186 smokers that had sought help for quitting smoking – determined by their involvement in a smoking cessation treatment study – and 102 smokers that were not interested in treatment, avoiding the treatment study altogether. Each smoker went through at least five cigarettes on a daily basis.

Participants were quizzed by the researchers about any previous attempts they had made to quit smoking, any instances they had done so and put weight on, and if they were worried about gaining weight if they successfully stopped smoking in the near future.

Fear of gaining weight was equal amongst the two groups but previous episodes of weight gain appeared to impact the urge of the smokers to seek treatment again after this.

Around half of those involved in the study had put weight on when trying to quit smoking and the same people were more likely to not bother attempting to seek smoking treatment again.

Those behind the study say that patients should receive more help from doctors and be asked about their experience with weight fluctuations as well as reassure the patient there are weight management ideas that can be included in their treatment for stopping smoking.

This worrying trend of smokers continuing their habit due to the fear of gaining weight is clearly an issue that needs tackling. Despite their being an abundance of benefits to be had from stopping smoking, few want to trade in a nicotine addiction for a food addiction.

However, rest assure that not everybody gains weight after they have kicked cigarettes into touch. You are more at risk if you are a heavy smoker, a heavy drinker or are already overweight. Those that do gain a few pounds need not panic too much as there are strategies you can undergo to help you control your weight.

For instance, regular exercising may help to avert half the expected weight in the initial year after stopping smoking. By gradually building up to around 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise each week (fast walking, cycling or swimming) this will help to burn off calories and keep the cigarette cravings to a minimum.

Smoking cessation medications such as Pfizer’s Champix can also help tremendously, actually doubling your chances of successfully stopping smoking and can help to limit weight gain in the first few months.

Asthma and premature births down 10% thanks to the smoking ban

The ban of smoking in public places has helped to reduce premature births and severe child childhood asthma attacks by 10%, according to research from Europe and the United States and published in the medical journal Lancet.

“Our research shows that smoking bans are an effective way to protect the health of our children,” said Jasper Been of the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Population Health Sciences, who led the study.

He says their findings should hopefully result in anti-smoking laws being implemented in those cities, countries and districts that do not currently have such restrictions in place.

The smoking ban was introduced in England in 2007, making it illegal to smoke in all enclosed public places such as restaurants, nightclubs, bars, restaurants and shopping centres. The ban has previously been shown to be highly effective at protecting people from the serious health problems associated with passive (secondhand) smoking, with a 5% drop in asthma hospital emergencies in the years following the ban.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) say tobacco is responsible for the deaths of six million people around the world annually. Over 600,000 of these deaths are not even people who smoke, but those who have died due to heavy exposure to secondhand smoke. Health experts have predicted the worldwide death toll will rise to eight million by 2030 if current trends are kept up.

According to WHO, alarmingly there is just 16% of the world’s population that feel the benefits of being protected by comprehensive smoke-free laws, with a shocking 40% of children around the world being regularly exposed to secondhand smoke.

The new research in the Lancet, involved researchers from the University of Edinburgh, Maastricht University, Hasselt University in Belgium, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital analysing data from over 2.5 million births and around 250,000 hospital visits in relation to asthma attacks and is the first comprehensive study assess exactly how anti-smoking legislation has impacted children’s health.

Co-author Professor Aziz Sheikh, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts, and the University of Edinburgh, says there is still a huge opportunity to improve the health of more children around the world.

“The many countries that are yet to enforce smoke-free legislation should in the light of these findings reconsider their positions on this important health policy question.”

There has never been a better time to quit smoking than now following a massive price reduction on a wide range of products and medications, and this includes the smoking cessation treatment Champix. For example, an online consultation for the Champix starter pack was £75, but this has now come down to just £38.95.For those already in possession of a private prescription, the price is even lower, at just £27.48!

Smokers encouraged to quit for No Smoking Day on 12 March

Medical Specialists Pharmacy is proudly supporting the next annual No Smoking Day, which will be taking place on 12 March 2014. Whether it is for this yearly awareness day, month-long campaigns such as ‘Stoptober’, for a New Year’s Resolution, or any other particular occasion, basically there is always a good reason to quit smoking today, not way in the future.

No Smoking Day is being pioneered by the British Heart Foundation, who understand not everybody can go ‘cold turkey’ and suddenly quit smoking for good instantly, but they are encouraging smokers to quit at least just for this one day to prove to themselves they can do it. It is hoped this one day smoke free will increase their motivation to quit for good in the long-run; this can be achieved with the help of smoking cessation medication such as Champix.

Now is the perfect time to quit as Medical Specialists Pharmacy have just drastically reduced the price of Champix to its lowest ever price! Prices have been reduced by as much as a whopping 50%. For instance, an online consultation for the Champix starter pack was £75, but this has now come down to just £38.95! For those already with a private prescription, the price is even lower, at a mere £27.48.

Everyone may have their own personal reasons for wanting to give up smoking. In the current financial climate, paying almost £10 for a packet of cigarettes is simply not feasible, with food and bills obviously much more important. For others, quitting could be part of a much wider plan to become healthier and include increasing exercise, eating better, etc.

A packet of 20 cigarettes can set you back around £7-£8, so the average 20-a-day smoker could suddenly have an extra £56 in their pocket each week. Wondering what to spend all that extra cash on? If you are spending £7 each day on your smoking habit, here’s what else you could be spending your money on:

1 day (£7): Two movie rentals or a new lipstick.
1 week (£49): A family cinema trip or a meal for two.
1 month (£210): A shopping spree or premiership football tickets.
3 months (£630): A new laptop or the latest flat screen TV.
6 months (£1,260): A leather suite or a home cinema.
1 year (£2,555): A new kitchen or a holiday of a lifetime.

If all that wasn’t music to your ears, you will feel extra money in your pocket in other ways. You will now suddenly find that life, home and car insurance will now be cheaper because you are a non-smoker.

It is worth remembering that you and everybody around you will reap the massive benefits from you stopping smoking. Your friends and family will no longer be inhaling second-hand smoke and having their health badly impacted too and for you personally, this is what you can look forward to in the forthcoming 12 months after stopping smoking:

20 minutes

Your heart rate and blood pressure return to a normal level.

8 hours

Oxygen levels return to normal as the nicotine and carbon monoxide begin to leave your body.

24 hours

Mucus and other smoking debris is cleared from the lungs.

48 hours

Nicotine should have been removed from your body by this stage and your sense of smell and taste are boosted.

2 – 12 weeks

Breathing improves and you find exercising is easier.

3 – 9 months

Any coughs, wheezing and breathing problems are reduced as your lungs repair.

1 year

You now have half the risk of coronary heart disease than that of a smoker.

If you want to get involved with No Smoking Day you can visit here or here to download the huge and informative campaign handbook which has details about the history of the day, what is included in the ‘V for Victory’ kit and advice for schools, employers and much more. On the downloads page of the British Heart Foundation website you can even see the smoking percentage statistics for your specific town and compare this against other regions within the United Kingdom.

Stanford University halts tobacco sales on campus – will UK Universities follow?

One of the world’s leading Universities is leading by example and clamping down on smoking by banning sale of cigarettes in addition to smoking on campus.

Stanford University in California’s Bay Area will force its campus shops to cease the sale of all tobacco products from 1 March, arguing that the sale of tobacco does not sit well with its work on the promotion of healthy living.

The high-profile university boasts almost 700 buildings and spans more than 8,000 acres. It often makes an appearance in the top 5 global university league tables and now joins other universities in the US to come down heavy on smoking.

Stanford’s smoking rules were given an overhaul three years ago forbidding smoking inside any building and not within a 9m distance of a building, in addition to being banned at outdoor athletic events.

Currently there is already a complete ban on outdoor smoking at the university’s school of medicine but the new rules mean next week that students cannot obtain any kind of tobacco product from vendors at convenience stores at the Valero gas station and Tresidder Union on campus.

Susan Weinstein, assistant vice president for business development and responsible for overseeing the vendors, says the new tougher rules have been in the pipeline for many months.

”The university is an advocate for the health and well-being of its entire community, and tobacco sales are inconsistent with our many programs that support healthy habits and behaviours,” Ms. Weinstein commented to the school’s daily email newsletter, the Stanford Report.

According to recent report made available by the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation, there are an estimated 1,182 college campuses in the US that now operate with a 100% smoke-free policy. This is almost double the number in 2011 and it is believe that of the 1,182 smoke-free campuses, 811 are even completely tobacco-free.

In recent times electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) have surged in popularity across the US and here in the UK, creating a concern as to whether e-cigarettes are merely used as a smoking cessation method, or are being used as a gateway into smoking much more dangerous tobacco cigarettes.

However, Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest, criticised Stanford for “taking the war on tobacco to such extreme lengths”.

He said: “It sends the message that American colleges are increasingly illiberal, preferring prohibition to education, which is bizarre. If they won’t defend people’s right to buy a legal product it also calls into question their commitment to defend other rights like freedom of speech or assembly. Banning the sale of tobacco won’t stop students smoking. It could make it cooler because the university is effectively driving it underground.”

Quitting smoking can get the blood flowing into your love life

It has long been said that smoking not only harms a man’s fertility but also effects his ability to achieve and sustain an erection, and the findings from a new study suggest that smoking is indeed disastrous for a man’s risk of suffering with erectile dysfunction.

The study, conducted over a period of three years, was carried out by experts based at the University of Hong Kong Schools of Public Health and Nursing. They assessed 700 men aged between 30 and 50, who were all smokers and complaining of impotence problems.

The team found that over half (53.8%) of the participants who successfully managed to quit smoking actually noted their erection problems had subsided, and within merely six months after quitting smoking. Therefore, those who gave up cigarettes had a 91.5% better chance of having a good sex life.

Involved in the study was Professor Sophia Chan, who stressed the need for smoking cessation programs to be introduced in a country such as China where there are a high number of men who are suffering with such problem.

Smokers should be aware of such adverse effects from their smoking and should quit now to prevent erectile dysfunction and other diseases caused by smoking”, commented Lam Tai-Hing, who was involved in the study with Professor Chan. Tai-Hing added; “In fact, erectile dysfunction patients who smoke can expect some quick benefits after quitting smoking.”

Smoking is believed to cause erectile dysfunction as it promotes narrowing in the arterial walls and negatively impacts blood flow to the penis through the pelvic region. There are a number of treatments available to men with impotence problems such as Viagra and Cialis; taken by millions of men around the world.

Viagra works it magic by enabling the blood vessels in your penis to relax, which then allows better flow into your Corpus Cavernosum and Spongiosum when you get sexually excited with stimulation.
Lifestyle improvements to boost cardiovascular health has also been found to ease the symptoms of erectile dysfunction. Men experiencing this problem may be advised to lose weight and begin exercising, lowering bad cholesterol level, lower blood pressure and adhere to a healthy diet that is low in saturated fat.

Maybe the graphic image warnings on cigarette packets about their dangers are not sufficient enough to get some men to quit smoking, but the risk of impotence could perhaps provide the motivation to finally stub out.

Smokers are encouraged to join the Stoptober challenge

For the second consecutive year, the anti-smoking campaign ‘Stoptober’ will be running and aimed at encouraging smokers to quit smoking for 28 days in October.

Public Health England (PHE) is behind the campaign which begins on October 1^st and promotion for it has already begun across England and Wales. PHE state that 2012’s challenge was an overwhelming success, with over 275,000 people registering for last year’s Stoptober, of which 160,000 managed to finish the 28 day challenge.

The 28 day time length for the challenge is not simply an arbitrary number; health experts say that a smoker who quits for 28 days, and abstains from cigarettes, could add a week onto their lifespan, every 28 days, for the rest of their life.

The benefits to stopping smoking


Those who quit usually experience physical improvements such as a better sense of taste and smell, more energy, a delayed onset of facial aging and wrinkles, whiter teeth, fresher breath and better sex due to improved blood flow and stronger erections for men.
In the longer term, those who quit smoking can significantly reduce the risk of suffering from heart disease and a wide range of cancers such as lung cancer, on top of preserving the health of those around you as there will now be no secondhand smoke.

England’s chief medical officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, said: “One in two long-term smokers die as a result of smoking, this is the single biggest cause of premature death taking more than 100,000 lives in the UK and costing the NHS up to £2.7 billion each year. Life is precious and Stoptober is all about supporting and encouraging each other to quit – potentially adding years to your life. Taking part in the challenge is a first step to a longer and healthier life, so have a go by stopping with Stoptober.”

Professor Kevin Fenton, director of health and wellbeing at Public Health England, added: “Campaigns such as Stoptober, along with the support provided by local stop smoking services, play a huge role in helping people to stop. Whilst smoking prevalence across the country as a whole is falling steadily, it remains high in some parts. We want every smoker to consider making a quit attempt this October and join the thousands of people who are feeling the benefits from stopping smoking last year.”

However, there are also major monetary benefits to be felt from giving up cigarettes – particularly important when considering how difficult it is for many families in the current financial climate. By quitting smoker, the average smoker can expect to save more than £150 a month and nearly £2,000 a year – if we take £7.77 for the cost price of a packet of cigarettes and an average daily consumption of 13 cigarettes per smoker. Incredibly, it was estimated that during last year’s Stoptober campaign £25 million was saved by 160,000 people from not buying cigarettes.

Those who want to sign up for Stoptober will receive a free stop-smoking pack, a 28-day mobile phone app and text support via daily updates and advice on quitting.

If you are a smoker who is aged 18 or above and wants to quit, you do not need to wait for Stoptober to begin. Quit today with the help of Medical Specialists Pharmacy. You can obtain the smoking cessation medication Champix following an online consultation with one of Medical Specialists’ GMC registered doctors. Champix works out from as little as just £75.00 per pack and mimics the effect of nicotine on the body, reducing the urge to smoke and relieving withdrawal symptoms. It can also decrease the enjoyment you experience of smoking if you are still smoking whilst on the treatment.

Quitting smoking – not ‘cutting down’ – improves life expectancy

Do you think you are being healthy by cutting down on cigarettes? Think again…New research suggests that smokers who merely cut down on their smoking instead of actually fully quitting, are unlikely to extend their lifespan.

The claims emerge from a huge study conducted by researchers from both Glasgow and Stirling Universities, spanning an incredible four decades.

Approximately 5,200 smokers from Scotland’s ‘central belt’ were involved in two smoking studies from the early 1970s. Despite the name, the central belt is not exactly central Scotland, but is actually the Scottish Highlands to the north and the Southern Uplands to the south; the area of highest population density in Scotland.

The participants were then asked about their smoking habits several years later. For instance, about whether they had managed to quit, had reduced how many cigarettes they smoked daily, or kept a similar level of smoking habit up, or even increased.

Data was compiled between the 1970s and 2010, documenting each death during this time from those in the two studies. The researchers noted that people who had successfully stopped smoking had lower mortality rates in comparison to those who had kept up the deadly habit. Moreover, there was no massive difference discovered in mortality rates between the smokers who had cut down their intake and those who had not.

Professor Linda Bauld, one of the report’s authors from Stirling University, commented: “Our results support the view that reducing the number of cigarettes you smoke is not a reliable way of improving your health in the long term. However, what we do now know is that it may have a valuable role as a step toward giving up altogether, through cutting down to quit, an approach that has been recommended in recent guidance in the UK.”

The findings however do not correlate with a similar long-term study conducted in Israel, whereby the results seemed to suggest that decreasing the number of cigarettes smoked can reduce mortality rates, although the results of the Scottish study back up the findings from larger studies of a shorter time period carried out in Denmark and Norway.

Regardless though, what we can be certain of is that smoking is an incredibly dangerous habit for long-term health reduces your lifespan by many years and can impact those around you via secondhand smoke. Medical Specialists Pharmacy and almost every other health body across the world advise smokers to quit smoking rather than just ‘cutting down’. One cigarette per day is still one too many in many people’s eyes.

Let’s not forget that smoking is directly the cause of numerous types of cancer, stroke and heart attacks, can cause male impotence, is terrible for the skin, but the habit is an incredibly expensive one to have to maintain.

The British Heart Foundation have listed the staggering amount of money that can be saved over the duration of a year by giving up smoking, in addition to more appealing things that the cash can be spent on.

They say the financial gains of stopping smoking are:

1 day (£7): Two movie rentals or a new lipstick.
1 week (£49): A family cinema trip or a meal for two.
1 month (£210): A shopping spree or premiership football tickets.
3 months (£630): A new laptop or the latest flat screen TV.
6 months (£1,260): A leather suite or a home cinema.
1 year (£2,555): A new kitchen or a holiday of a lifetime.

Medical Specialists Pharmacy is able to help you quit smoking with the aid of the smoking cessation medication Champix, meaning you will both protect your health and save huge amounts of money in the future as the government continually look to raise tobacco prices.

Champix mimics the effect of nicotine on the body, reducing the urge to smoke and relieving withdrawal symptoms. It can also decrease the enjoyment you experience of smoking if you are still smoking whilst on the treatment. The medication equates to just £75.00 per pack – inexpensive in comparison to the £2,555 you can save over a year by quitting smoking!

Fear of impotence and wrinkles drive smokers to quit

Here is some basic information about some of the numerous dangers of smoking:

. Scientists say that the average smoker will lose 14 years of their life because of smoking.
. Smokers are twice as likely to suffer from a heart attack in comparison to their non-smoking counterparts.
. Smoking has been proven to be directly responsible for many types of cancer including: throat, lung, kidney, bladder, stomach, liver and cervix.
. Smoking accounts for 71% of all lung cancer deaths.

Now, you’d be forgiven for thinking these reasons alone would be enough of a deterrent for smoking and perhaps persuade current smokers into quitting smoking to improve their long-term health.

New research would suggest however this isn’t the case at all and it is in fact vanity/self-preservation motivations that are the reasons behind people kicking the deadly habit into touch rather than the worry of a premature death.  Indeed, there still remains an estimated 10 million Brits who are addicted to smoking, which should not be the case when there is smoking cessation medication available such as Champix that can help them quit for good, saving potentially thousands of pounds a year and adding years onto their life.

Despite the government’s best efforts to get people to stop smoking via steep increases in cigarette taxation and increasingly more graphic warnings and images being plastered on cigarette packets, for men it is the worry of impotency and a loss of sex drive that urges them to quit smoking.  Whilst it would seem women are concerned about cigarettes accelerating the aging process and giving them wrinkles, laugh lines and dreaded ‘crow’s feet’.

Stirling University’s Brian Williams, professor of Behavioural & Health Services Research, commented on his team’s research, saying: “Eight out of ten smokers want to quit. Targeting groups with images of issues that relate directly to their own concerns can have most effect. If we know one brand has a certain market – among say women – it would allow us to design images that were tailored to that particular demographic, say on looks or fertility. It is what advertisers do as well.”

Professor Williams and colleagues scrutinised answers given from around 19,000 people who completed a UK-wide online survey about their thoughts/reactions to graphic images printed on cigarette packaging.

It was found that there were three particular images that struck a chord with respondents due to their shock factor. A neck tumour image was found to be the most powerful, with 80% admitting this had affected them. Second was diseased teeth at 77%, and diseased lungs was third most powerful, with 72% saying this had upset them.

Interestingly, researchers observed that particular images seemed to have a bigger impact on certain age and gender groups differently than others.

For instance, the study found that female smokers were considerably more affected by all three images regarding aging in comparison to male counterparts. Images related to pregnancy and children also had a bigger impact on women compared to the male smokers.

The study report added: “Men were consistently more affected by the images relating to sexual performance/impotence. Images relating to heart and lung disease as a consequence of smoking were most effective amongst over-50s. Students and professionals were more affected by cosmetic issues than those who were unemployed or retired, possibly due to the impact of damage to their appearance caused by smoking. Most of the images relating to fertility, impotence and pregnancy > had a significantly greater effect on the 16-39 age group. The closer the characteristics of both the narrative and visual > forms match those of the viewer the greater the likely impact on risk representations.”

The report concluded: “This suggests that, as specific images have a more persuasive effect on particular groups, it may be worth considering a targeted approach to anti-smoking messages, placing appropriate images on brands known to be purchased by young, adult and older smokers.”
Professor Williams believes that smokers may not quit with shock tactics alone. He said: “What we are missing at the moment is images and messages on cigarette packets that encourage people to take the next step; that it is possible to give up.”

Seeing 10 smoking ads can increase the risk of teen smoking by 40%

Tobacco adverts run the risk of persuading teenagers to start smoking according to researchers behind a new study published in the online only journal BMJ Open.
 
Researchers from The Institute for Therapy and Health Research in Germany, claim that by just seeing 10 adverts for tobacco, this can increase risk of youngsters picking up the deadly habit.
The claims emanate from the researcher’s findings from a two and a half year period where they closely tracked over 1,300 non-smoking 10 to 15-year-olds, specifically monitoring the teenager’s exposure to tobacco advertising and their subsequent behaviour.

Whilst tobacco advertising to the public is completely outlawed in the United Kingdom due to the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002, in Germany tobacco advertising on billboards is still permitted. In addition, tobacco smoking in Germany is still advertised in certain magazines, during sporting events, and in petrol stations.  Television and radio advertising for such products however is banned.

The German researchers began monitoring the teenagers – selected from public schools in three separate regions of Germany – in 2008. They were quizzed on how often they had seen certain advertisements, which included those of Germany’s top six most popular cigarette brands as well as eight more non-tobacco products. These included mobile phones, cars, clothes and chocolate.

In 2011, after 30 months had passed, the teenagers were asked the same questions as before. They were also asked about if they had smoked in the previous two and a half years, and if so, how often.
It was discovered that around a third of the study participants (406 in total) had tried smoking in this time frame, in addition to one in 10 (138) admitting they had smoked in the month leading up to the present day.

Moreover, of the 1,300 teenagers, one in 20 (66) stated they had smoked their way through over 100 cigarettes – determined as being ‘established’ smokers by the researchers. Worryingly, 58 of those teenagers said they now smoked every day. A third of those were younger than 14 years of age and only a quarter were at least 16-years-old. The minimum legal age to purchase cigarette or tobacco products in Germany is 18. In comparison, it is illegal to sell tobacco to anybody under the age of 18 in England and Wales but the minimum age for consumption in public is 16.

When the exposure to the different types of advertisements were compared, the non-tobacco products were seen a lot more. However, almost half in the study had seen one particular cigarette advert at least once, whilst 13% had seen the ad over 10 times.

The researchers took into account common influences for picking up the habit and then determined that exposure to tobacco advertising was second only to peer-pressure for beginning to smoke for the first time.

The teens who had seen the most tobacco-related advertisements (11 to 55 times in total) had around the double the chance of becoming either an established or daily smoker in comparison to those who had seen on average the least amount (between 0 to 2.5).

It was calculated that there was a 38% increase of the teenagers becoming ‘established’ smokers for each extra 10 viewings of a tobacco ad and were 30% more likely to become daily smokers compared with the same number of sightings for adverts promoting non-tobacco products.

The authors concluded: “Only exposure to tobacco advertisements predicted smoking initiation, which cannot be attributed to a general receptiveness to marketing.”

If you would like to quit smoking, Medical Specialists Pharmacy can help you do this as we offer the smoking cessation medication Champix for suitable patients.

Champix is not recommended for use in children or adolescents below 18 years of age, however smokers over this age can benefit from the medication, which works to mimic the effect of nicotine on the body, reducing the urge to smoke and relieving withdrawal symptoms. It can also decrease the enjoyment you experience of smoking if you succumb to the urge and have a cigarette whilst on the treatment. The medication equates to just £75.00 per pack – inexpensive compared to an estimated £2,555 you could save each year by quitting smoking!

All you have to do is complete the simple four-step online consultation and if approved by one of our Doctors, they will write a prescription that will be dispensed by our in-house pharmacy team, dispatched to you at your home, place of work, or where ever you choose, discreetly within 24 hours!*

*Allow extra time for overseas deliveries.

Smoking ban leads to annual 5% drop in asthma hospital emergencies

An annual 5% drop in hospital admissions for asthma patients in England requiring treatment could be attributed to the introduction of the 2007 smoking ban, which made it illegal to smoke in all enclosed public places such as restaurants, nightclubs, bars and shopping centres.

The 5% drop basically means that there are around 1900 fewer asthma-related admissions every year, say the authors of a new study who looked at the number of emergency asthma admissions for adults aged 16 and above in England between the duration of April 1997 and December 2010. Affecting roughly 5.9% of the population, the prevalence of asthma in England stands at one of the largest in the world.

For the study, published in the journal Thorax, Researchers based at the University of Bath discovered that there were a total of 502,000 ‘emergency’ hospital visits due to asthma in this time frame. Unsurprisingly, with cold weather being a trigger for symptoms to flare up, more admissions were evident throughout winter months compared to the summer; however numbers of admissions vastly differed depending on the area of the country.

Researchers took into account factors such as varying seasonal temperatures, differences in population size, and long-term patterns in regards to the prevalence of asthma. After considering all of the aforementioned factors, they discovered that emergency admissions for adults with asthma decreased by 4.9% during each of the first three years after the 2007 smoking ban, with a similar percentage decline in all geographical regions of England.

Dr Michelle Sims, author of the paper, said the benefits of the anti-smoking legislation were clear to see, commenting: “Secondhand smoke exposure has significant adverse health effects on the adult respiratory system with current evidence suggesting that it contributes to the onset and exacerbation of asthma. There is already evidence that smoke free legislation in England is associated with reductions in second hand smoke exposure among non-smoking adults and fewer emergency hospital admissions for heart attacks and childhood asthma. Our findings show that these health benefits extend to adult asthma.”

Emily Humphreys, head of policy and public affairs at the charity Asthma UK, said: “Eight out of 10 people with asthma tell us that other people’s smoke makes their asthma worse. That’s why we campaigned for the smoke-free laws and are delighted to see evidence of the benefits these are having on the millions of people with asthma in England. By taking action to reduce asthma triggers, we can prevent asthma attacks that can lead to hospitalisation and even death. However, more still needs to be done to prevent attacks, which kill three people each day in the UK.”

This new study is interesting and certainly highlights how cigarette smoke and asthma can be strongly connected. The findings follow that of a separate study which Medical Specialists Pharmacy reported back in January. Conducted by a team at Imperial College London, that particular study looked at admission rates spanning back to April 2002 and found an incredible 12% decline in childhood asthma hospital admissions during the first 12 months after the ban. This was calculated by taking into account a predicted 2.2% rise annually – and a decline continued in subsequent years with 3.4% fall per year for the next two years.

Asthma is a serious condition that is only worsened by exposure to cigarette smoke. Medical Specialists Pharmacy advise you to immediately quit smoking if you or a loved one also suffers from asthma, and we are able to help you achieve this with the aid of the smoking cessation medication Champix.

Champix mimics the effect of nicotine on the body, reducing the urge to smoke and relieving withdrawal symptoms. It can also decrease the enjoyment you experience of smoking if you are still smoking whilst on the treatment. The medication equates to just £75.00 per pack – inexpensive compared to an estimated £2,555 you can save each year by quitting smoking!

Alternatively, visit the ‘Asthma and Allergies’ area of the Medical Specialists website for a full list of all the preventer and reliever inhalers we provide for suitable patients.

Secondhand smoke could impair childhood kidney function

Whilst many teenagers may believe that smoking cigarettes will improve their popularity amongst friends and gain them misguided admiration in the playground, they should also be aware of the damage that cigarettes do to their adolescent bodies after a study has linked secondhand smoke exposure to effects on kidney function beginning in childhood.

The study, led by Esther Garcia-Esquinas, MD, of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at John Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and published April 8 in the journal Pediatrics, was conducted to see if secondhand smoke exposure could be attributed to chronic kidney disease in children.

A cross-sectional study was therefore carried out, comprising of an analysis of 7,516 adolescents aged between 12 and 17; all of whom were involved in the 1999-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

The teens all had blood tests to determine any creatinine and cotinine levels. Creatinine is a waste break-down product from muscle tissue in the body that is filtered through the kidneys. Doctors look at a person’s blood creatinine level as a test to determine kidney function and the kidneys’ ability to handle creatinine is known as the ‘creatinine clearance rate’.

‘Cotinine’, an anagram of nicotine, is an alkaloid chemical contained in tobacco and is also a product that is created by metabolising nicotine. By measuring the levels of cotinine in an individual’s bloodstream, it is possible to extract information on their recent use of tobacco in addition to assessing how much secondhand smoking the person has been exposed to.

The teens within the study who admitted that they smoked or those with serum cotinine levels found to be over 10 ng/mL, were regarded as ‘active smokers’. Those who lived with at least one person who smoked or had cotinine levels measuring at least 0.05 ng/mL, were classified as being exposed to secondhand smoke. In addition, any study participants with serum cotinine levels under 0.05 ng/mL, not living with a smoker and had not smoked in the previous month, were viewed as being unexposed to tobacco.

Researchers analysed the glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR, level by looking at the creatinine levels. This helps to understand how much blood a person’s kidneys are filtering to get a better picture of kidney function.

It was discovered that the teens’ eGFR declined at the same rate that their cotinine concentration in the blood increased. This pattern was evident even after the participants’ weight was taken into account as well as and socioeconomic and demographic factors.

Jeffrey Fadrowski, MD, MHS, co-author of the study and an assistant professor in Pediatric Nephrology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, commented: “Small changes in the distribution of estimated glomerular filtration rate levels in the population could have a substantial impact in kidney-related illness, as it is well known for changes in blood pressure levels and hypertension-related disease. Evaluating potential secondhand smoke exposure and providing recommendations to minimize exposure should continue to be incorporated as part of children’s routine medical care.”

Other researchers in the study added: “Evidence from studies in adult populations suggest that smoking, particularly heavy smoking and cumulative smoking exposure, is an independent risk factor for chronic kidney disease in both genders, as shown in large, prospective observational studies.”

Millions of smokers urged to quit for No Smoking Day

An event that ‘unofficially’ first began thirty years ago is still going strong today as national No Smoking Day is upon us, with an estimated 750,000 smokers using the day as a springboard to a much healthier, tobacco-free future.  No Smoking Day is being supported by the UK charity WeQuit and the British Heart Foundation.

‘Don’t Smoke Day’, as it was first referred to back in 1983 by media, was the brainchild of a retired hospital administrator named Tom Hurst who penned a letter to the Minister for Health, requesting such a day. Hurst was fully aware of the potentially-fatal effects of smoking and believed it was necessary for parliament to implement a day that raised awareness of the issue.

Unfortunately for Hurst, the reply he received back was less than encouraging; “The Minister feels he is unable to support campaigns which might mislead the public into assuming that a causal relationship between tobacco smoking and cancer had been definitely proved.”

Of course, the Minister’s replied has been shown to be nonsense in the subsequent thirty years and it seems that more studies emerge on a daily basis that clearly demonstrate  how dangerous smoking is, being linked to many terminal cancers in addition to other serious health conditions such as multi-generational asthma, sudden cardiac death, osteoporosis and many more.

Realising that many smokers are still ignorant to the damage they are doing to their bodies and turning a blind eye to it, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) have taken advantage of the yearly format to alternate the theme of the day, instead focusing on where else cigarettes can impact smokers – their pockets.

Therefore, those who want to quit smoking are being encouraged to ‘Swap Fags for Swag’. The BHF have even listed the staggering amount of money that can be saved over the duration of a year by giving up, in addition to other more appealing things that the cash can be spent on.
They say the financial gains of stopping smoking are:

1 day (£7): Two movie rentals or a new lipstick.
1 week (£49): A family cinema trip or a meal for two.
1 month (£210): A shopping spree or premiership football tickets.
3 months (£630): A new laptop or the latest flat screen TV.
6 months (£1,260): A leather suite or a home cinema.
1 year (£2,555): A new kitchen or a holiday of a lifetime.

A main reason why the British Heart Foundation are involved in No Smoking Day is because smoking doubles a person’s risk of heart attack and a report they have recently conducted has found that an incredible 82% of smokers have at some point attempted to kick the habit and not succeeded.
In total, 2010 smokers were surveyed and over one in ten commented they were ‘desperate’ to stop smoking. Moreover, 40% had tried to quit between four and 21 times.

Dr Mike Knapton, Associate Medical Director for the BHF, said: “Every year more than 100,000 smokers die because of their addiction. This addiction can be incredibly hard to break and we hear time and again of smokers who are absolutely desperate to quit, they just don’t know where to start. The report reveals that a quarter of smokers are more motivated to give up for financial reasons rather than to benefit their health. The downward trend in smoking rates has plateaued in recent years, proving we need to renew our efforts to help our ‘final fifth’ quit. Often these are long-term smokers, or people surrounded by family, friends and colleagues who smoke. They’re harder to reach, and they’ll probably find it hard to quit. That’s why we all need to reinvigorate our efforts to help smokers and UK governments are part of the mix. We need investment in local stop smoking services and measures such as standardised packaging to help protect our children from the fatal addiction so many people are currently battling with.”

Medical Specialists Pharmacy is able to help you quit smoking with the aid of the smoking cessation medication Champix, meaning you will both protect your health and save huge amounts of money in the future as the government continually raise tobacco prices.

Champix mimics the effect of nicotine on the body, reducing the urge to smoke and relieving withdrawal symptoms. It can also decrease the enjoyment you experience of smoking if you are still smoking whilst on the treatment. The medication equates to just £75.00 per pack – inexpensive in comparison to the approximate £2,555 you can save by quitting smoking!

Risk of death for female smokers has soared over the years

Research published in today’s The New England Journal of Medicine shows that women who smoke in the present day face a much higher risk of dying from lung cancer and other diseases connected to smoking than they did decades ago in the 1960s.

This is because many are starting to light-up much younger and smoking more cigarettes than their ancestors did.  Another finding to emerge from the study may not be surprising when you consider the thousands of harmful chemicals in a single cigarette but on average, smokers (of either gender) are dying at least a decade earlier than non-smokers.

Researchers in the studies wanted to determine if smoking was still as lethal as it was during 1980s as cigarettes now contain less tar, many smokers have quit, and treatments for many smoking-related diseases have improved.

Part of the analysis comprised of a study led by Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society, who used seven population surveys to track the number of smoking related fatalities between three time periods: 1956 – 1965, 1982 – 1988 and 2000 – 2010. In total, 2.2 million men and women were assessed, just a small fraction however of the 1.3 billion estimated smokers around the globe.
During the 1960s it was established that smoking increased a woman’s chances of succumbing to lung cancer by 2.7 times. However, by 2000 to 2010, the risk had now skyrocketed 25-fold. It was determined that both current smokers of either sex today were almost equally more at risk than non-smokers of developing conditions such as COPD, heart disease, lung cancer and strokes, the research showed.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is similar in certain characteristics to asthma and therefore can be treated with the use of Ventolin Evohaler with symptoms including chronic cough, tightness in the chest, and excessive phlegm. Like asthma, it is often an underestimated condition and not taken seriously enough as a life-threatening health problem.  However this study showed that the risk of dying increased four times greater than it was for people who had never smoked in the 1960s, to 22.5 times.

Dr. Thun implies that an explanation for the rise in risk of dying from lung cancer among women smokers between 1960 and 2000 could be linked to tobacco manufacturers releasing milder ‘light’ products solely aimed at the female market. For example it was in the 1960s when tobacco giant Philip Morris introduced its Virginia Slims brand – the very first cigarette marketed just at women.

He says: “The steep increase in risk among female smokers has continued for decades after the serious health risks from smoking were well established, and despite the fact that women predominantly smoked cigarette brands marketed as lower in tar and nicotine. So not only did the use of cigarette brands marketed as ‘light’ and ‘mild’ fail to prevent a large increase in risk in women, it also may have exacerbated the increase in deaths from chronic obstructive lung disease in male smokers, since the diluted smoke from these cigarettes is inhaled more deeply into the lungs of smokers to maintain the accustomed absorption of nicotine.”

In the U.S. there are over 35 million smokers — about 20% of men and 18% of women. It was during the 1980s though when women began smoking in their masses – two decades later than when large smoking rates were witnessed for males. Smoking rates were particularly high during the ’60s, when around 1 in 3 adult women smoked.

Dr. Thun says that the data in his study shows that women who smoke have the same risk for death as men. “When women smoke like men, they die like men”, Thun explained.
Within the same journal were the findings of a study led by Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto, who looked at data contained on 217,000 Americans over the age of 25 who had responded to federal health surveys between 1997 and 2004. It was observed that around 16,000 of these people had died many years later.

Dr. Jha and colleagues found that:

. Those who stopped smoking in their mid-30s to mid-40s managed to extend their lifespan by nine years. Those who quit from their mid-40s to mid-50s gained six years. Those quitting later than this period this but prior to age 65, gain about four years.
. Smokers aged 25 to 79 were around three times more likely to die as non-smoking counterparts in the same age group.
. Those who had never smoked are twice as more likely to reach the age of 80 than smokers.
Over one hundred thousand people in the UK die each year due to smoking. Smoking-related deaths are mainly due to cancers, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and heart disease.

Smoking is a worldwide issue and not just one in the U.S. Cutting down on the number of cigarettes each day will only go so far to improving health, the best solution is to completely stop altogether. As these studies have highlighted, smoking increases the risk of developing a number of diseases which may not always be fatal, but can result in many years of unpleasant symptoms.

Quit smoking today with the help of the smoking cessation medication Champix. The Doctors at Medical Specialists can help you do this. Complete the simple 4 step online questionnaire, and if the online consultation is approved by one of our Doctors, they will write a prescription that will be dispensed by our in-house pharmacy team.

Hospital blasted for proposed smoking shelter next to cancer ward

Bosses at The University of North Staffordshire hospital have caused a huge outpouring of anger after its plans to construct a smoking shelter outside a cancer ward were made public.

The hospital initially spoke of their proposed planning permission for five smoking shelters on-site in October of last year after staff, patients and visitors complained that smokers were repeatedly ignoring the rules regarding the strict no-smoking policy for directly outside the entrances to the hospital. However, further complaints were also made because of the fact that smokers would often convene in large groups on the A34, which is close by.

At the time, The hospital’s chief nurse Liz Rix said: “We want to encourage people not to smoke because of their health, but it’s become very difficult [to enforce the smoking ban].We have had so many complaints from staff, patients and visitors to the hospital about what you can see outside the grounds that we thought we had to try something different.” She also added that the hospital ‘absolutely do not condone’ smoking and would be ‘encouraging and supporting’ patients to stop smoking altogether.

If Stoke-on-Trent City Council give the go-ahead for the planning application (a decision is expected in February), then the five smoking shelters are to be erected next to two main entrances, the hospital’s maternity block, the accident and emergency unit and what has maybe caused the most fury – outside of the hospital’s cancer ward.

Cancer charities and people who have suffered with the deadly disease – commonly attributed to smoking – have now spoke out and blasted the prospect of a smoking shelter right beside a place where people are being treated for cancer, arguing it is a thoughtless and insensitive move from the hospital.

Cancer survivor Harry Larkins, 70, from Cheadle, Staffs, successfully managed to overcome cancer back in 2009 but still attends a check-up each year at the hospital. He hit out at the plans and said: “I know they have to accommodate smokers, but a lot of people in the cancer ward have smoked throughout their lives and don’t need reminding that could be the reason they are there. It’s just plain insensitive. It is a huge site and they could put them somewhere a lot more discreet. I think it’s a terrible error of judgement.”

Councillor Colin Eastwood, chairman of Newcastle Borough Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee, gave a scathing verdict of the hospital’s smoking shelters, saying: “I don’t feel the shelters are really addressing the problem of smoking. It is almost like condoning smoking. Smoking is a real issue in the local area and it concerns me that the hospital is providing for them. What they should be doing is supporting smokers who are admitted to hospital to quit the habit.”

To try and defend the plans, the chief nurse Lisa Rix commented: “We do not condone smoking on our premises by patients, visitors or staff. However, a degree of pragmatism has been adopted to keep the hospital clean and tidy and smokers away from building entrances. The beautiful main entrance has become a particular problem area with a large number of smokers congregating and at times it has been difficult to keep the area clean. We accept this has caused problems for neighbouring residential areas and are working with unions to see what actions can be taken to alleviate this. We enforce a blanket ban on staff smoking on our property and staff will not be allowed to use the shelters.”

Smoking is without doubt the most avoidable cause of many cancers and is often directly linked to throat, mouth, cervix, stomach, bowel and kidney cancer. The biggest killer though in regards to smoking-related cancers is lung cancer – responsible for over four out of every five cancer cases. Unfortunately lung cancer has one of the worst survival rates of any type of cancer but it is preventable with swift action that involves quitting smoking as soon as possible before it is too late.

Many people are able to give up smoking through the aid of the smoking cessation medication Champix, which works by replicating the effect of nicotine on the body. Therefore, it both reduces the urge to smoke and relieves withdrawal symptoms. Although you are not recommended to smoke after your quit date, Champix can also reduce the enjoyment of cigarettes if you do smoke when on treatment. It is available today from Medical Specialists Pharmacy from as little as just £75.00 per pack.

Graphic ad campaign could shock smokers into quitting

The New Year is just four days away and with a New Year comes fresh determination to make positive changes in our lives as we are on the brink of New Year’s Eve – usually in the form of New Year’s resolutions. These could span from simple life goals such as cut down on chocolate, be a less selfish person, or more serious health-based resolutions such as lose weight or quit smoking.

The latter is such a common resolution to make for England’s 8 million smokers and with this in mind; the UK government has decided to seize the opportunity for our disposition to create health-related resolutions. In particularly, they are targeting these 8 million smokers with a nine-week long £2.7 million ad campaign which begins today and the core aim is to utilise shock tactics in attempt to get people to stop smoking.

TV, posters and billboards and the internet will all be used in The Department of Health’s (DoH) campaign in an attempt to reach the target audience. The disturbing graphic image chosen is that of a tumour growing from a cigarette as it is smoked and is the first ‘shock’-intended campaign since the infamous fatty cigarette advert in 2004 that depicted fatty deposits being squeezed out of a smoker’s artery, with dripping fat coming out of the end of the cigarette.

According to the DoH it merely takes just smoking 15 cigarettes to cause some type of mutation that can lead to cancer. Many people are unaware of this staggering fact though and Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies says that the new campaign has been devised following the gathering of statistics showing that over a third of smokers are under the misguided belief that health risks are over-exaggerated. However, keen readers of the Medical Specialists Pharmacy news section will know that the dangers of smoking  are certainly not exaggerated and smoking-related studies are continuously released, providing plenty of evidence that shows how damaging the habit actually is.

Professor Dame Sally Davies said: “People are playing Russian roulette with their health. What our evidence shows is that people don’t personalise the impact of their own smoking. They don’t understand what’s going on in their own bodies, so that’s why we’re launching such a hard-hitting campaign. It’s to show them a real picture of what cancer looks like and what happens in one in two long-term smokers. This is a hard-hitting campaign to get at the hidden harms of smoking. People will see a man smoking and then a cancer growing out of the cigarette. That is what happens in people’s bodies. One in two smokers dies from smoking, most from cancer. We know that people don’t personalise the harms of smoking and don’t understand what’s happening in their bodies. This will show them.”

Of course, quitting smoking is no easy task and estimates say that one out of every five smokers who tries to quit, relapses within just one day. The new DoH adverts will hopefully hit home with smokers though and show the awful harm that cigarettes do to the human body.  To support them, smokers are currently being encouraged to collect a free ‘Quit Kit’ from any local participating pharmacy.
Together with support from surrounding friends and family, as well as the Quit Kit and smoking cessation medication such as Champix, smokers will hopefully have enough tools in their armour to finally kick the habit in to touch!

Champix is a prescription medication that can be obtained from Medical Specialists following an online consultation with one of our GMC registered doctors. The medication works out at just £75.00 per pack. Champix mimics the effect of nicotine on the body, reducing the urge to smoke and relieving withdrawal symptoms. It can also decrease the enjoyment you experience of smoking if you are still smoking whilst on the treatment.

Just one cigarette a day doubles the risk of sudden death in women

Previously it was thought that heavy smokers are most at risk from such health problems as heart disease, cancer, etc. However, a new study has emerged showing that women who smoke just a single cigarette each day and believe they are avoiding such dangers, are still at massive risk.

Researchers from the University of Alberta, Canada, tracked 101,018 women over a period of thirty years, examining the effects of both cigarette smoking and smoking cessation. In particularly, researchers were curious how many instances of sudden cardiac death (SCD) there would be. All study participants were between 30 to 55 years old and on average it was found that those who smoked, began in their later teenager years.

SCD is a where a sudden expected non-violent/non-traumatic death happens as a result of the loss of heart function. This is usually due to fatty deposits blocking arteries in the heart within older people, and in younger people under 35 years old, it is more than likely because of an inherited condition running in their family. The incidence of sudden cardiac death is approximately 1 in 1,000 per year, more common in males than females which make the findings of the Canadian study all the more intriguing.

The risk of heart problems was found to be double for women smoking just one cigarette each day compared to those who do not smoke, and the risk is a lot higher for long term smokers. The dangers are even greater than first thought and provide even more evidence that smokers should try and quit cigarettes altogether instead of limiting them to one or two a day, believing this to be healthier. Clearly even one cigarette is one too many, although the researchers do point out that the risk can be reversed and maybe eliminated within half a decade if women manage to stop smoking.

Roopinder K. Sandhu, M.D., M.P.H., the study’s lead author and a cardiac electrophysiologist at the University of Alberta’s Mazankowski Heart Institute in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, says: “Cigarette smoking is a known risk factor for sudden cardiac death, but until now, we didn’t know how the quantity and duration of smoking effected the risk among apparently healthy women, nor did we have long-term follow-up.”

During their three-decade long study, there were 351 occurrences of SCD according to the report in Circulation: Arrhythmia & Electrophysiology, an American Heart Association journal. Proving just how damaging cigarettes are to the human body, it was discovered that Women with no previous history of cancer, heart disease, or stroke and who smoked were at two and a half times the risk of sudden cardiac death in comparison to healthy non-smoking women. For each additional five years of smoking, the risk shot-up by 8%. There was some positive findings however. Researchers ascertained that if women with heart disease decide to quit smoking, they will see their risk of sudden cardiac death falling to levels of a non-smoker after a period of 15 to 20 years of kicking the habit.

Upon viewing the alarming findings from the study, Ellen Mason, Senior Cardiac Nurse at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), commented: “This study shows that smoking just a couple of cigarettes a day could still seriously affect your future health. As we approach the New Year, many of us will be making resolutions and giving up smoking will be top of the list for lots of people. If you’re thinking of quitting and need a nudge, this research adds to the wealth of evidence that stopping smoking is the single best thing you can do for your heart health.”

Quitting smoking should be something considered all year-round though and not just as a New Year’s resolution, that often people will give-up on.  If this study alone will not persuade you to quit, perhaps many of the other countless serious health risks could tempt you to finally stop.

If you require a little extra help, why not try effective smoking cessation medication from Medical Specialists Pharmacy. Champix is a prescription medication that works out from as little as just £75.00 per pack, an incredibly small price when it comes to your long-term health. Champix mimics the effect of nicotine on the body, reducing the urge to smoke and relieving withdrawal symptoms. It can also decrease the enjoyment you experience of smoking if you are still smoking whilst on the treatment. In fact, many people argue than Champix is much better than nicotine patches at helping you to stop smoking.