Locum Tenens (Temporary) Dentist – Gregory Cole, D.D.S.

Life without cigarettes is not all doom and gloom. In fact, successful quitters are more satisfied with their lives and feel healthier, both one year and three years afterwards, than those who continue to smoke. That’s according to new research by Dr. Megan Piper, from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in the US, and her team. Their work, which looks at whether quitting smoking can improve psychological well-being, is published online in Springer’s journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine.

It may be tough to quit, but it certainly pays health dividends.

The authors conclude: “This research provides substantial evidence that quitting smoking benefits well-being compared to continuing smoking. Smokers might believe that quitting will decrease life satisfaction or quality of life — because they believe it disrupts routines, interferes with relationships, leads to a loss of smoking-related pleasure, or because cessation deprives them of a coping strategy. Our findings suggest that, over the long-term, individuals will be happier and more satisfied with their lives if they stop smoking than if they do not.”

So, go ahead and quit. Improve your health, the health of others around you and your quality of life.

Nicotine replacement therapy and smoking cessation intervention programs are associated with positive outcomes among current smokers, according to two studies in the November 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

“In summary, providing brief NT sampling to smokers who do not want to quit, when used within a behavioral exercise of a PQA, is efficacious to motivate unmotivated smokers toward quitting,” the authors conclude. “Considering the stagnant incidence of quit attempts in the past decade, this novel and easy-to-use cessation induction strategy holds promise for translation to primary care settings.”

“This randomized controlled trial shows that a smoking intervention based on chronic disease management principles of care — targeting the goal of quitting smoking but incorporating failures, setting interim goals and continuing care until the desired outcome is achieved — is approximately 75 percent more effective at accomplishing long-term abstinence than delivery of a discrete episode of care for smoking cessation,” the authors conclude.

And, why is quitting so important?

Compared with current smokers, risk of death was significantly reduced among past smokers within 10 years of quitting. By 20 years after quitting, the risk was further reduced, to the level of never smokers. Although current heavy smokers had the highest risk of death compared with current light and past smokers, the risk of death could be reduced by 44 percent for this group within 10 years of quitting and reach a similar risk as never smokers after more than 20 years.

So, I will beat the drum again: If you don’t smoke, don’t start. If you do smoke, please quit.