Cigarettes Are Not Helping Anything, After All-WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS

Cigarettes Are Not Helping Anything, After All

Cigarettes Are Not Helping Anything, After All- It has long been believed that smokers are thinner because nicotine depresses their hunger and that if they were to quit smoking, they would automatically gain a lot of weight. That may not be as scientifically valid as previously believed. While nicotine does depress the appetite to some extent, it does not do so enough to account for a huge amount of weight loss. What’s more, smokers who quit smoking by using behavior therapy were not only more likely to give up the cigarettes but to also gain little to no weight while doing so.

In one study, it was found that smokers, especially women, who received weight centric counseling in addition to smoking cessation medications while quitting not only had a higher success rate but also managed to do so with less weight gain over all as well. It has long been thought that only a smoker should focus on changing only one behavior at a time, however, it was quickly found that in the case of smoking and weight loss or weight maintenance, the combination worked better for the long run.

Cigarettes Are Not Helping Anything, After All

In her senior thesis, Lisa Webb, from the Nordic School of Public Health in Sweden, looked at the link between a decrease in cigarette smoking in many western countries while the number of obese people has continued to rise. In her paper, Webb looked at the information for 6000 people who had two weight classing measurements taken: first their body mass index, BMI and their waist to hip ratio. Her findings revealed that the WHR reading was higher for both the male and female smokers while the female smokers had a slightly lowered BMI number compared to their non-smoking peers. Overall, the WHR and BMI increased slightly for smokers in the study, regardless of gender.

Most smokers agree that it is bad for their health and will try to stop smoking. However, many of them will worry about possible weight gain and will start smoking once again. Smoking has long topped the list of avoidable habits that contribute to heart disease, lung disease and cancer but obesity is also high on that list. Combining the two habits can be doubly dangerous for people, putting them at extremely high risk for a number of conditions and making some illnesses more serious. Obesity, for instance, can add time to a hospital stay due to the weight related complications.

There have been a number of smoking cessation products on the market, some with decent success rates and others that have been less than stellar. One that seems to meet the approval of the smoker and the health community is the nicotine free, plastic inhaler which is often referred to as an electronic cigarette or e-cig. An Italian study showed that the device made it easier for smokers to actually give up their cigarettes in a shorter period of time and without relapsing like other methods.

Article Source: http://www.streetarticles.com/obesity/smoking-and-obesity-cigarettes-are-not-helping-anything-after-all