allscan.org

The “quit smoking” crowd is everywhere, and it has infiltrated allscan.org now. I’ve been smoking cigarettes for six months, my wife much longer. While it has always been a choice to start, it seems that the choice to quit is much harder. I watched an episode of Modern Marvels on tobacco where a doctor mentioned that more people are addicted to nicotine than any other drug and that nicotine is the fastest addicting drug around.

Well I don’t know about all that, but here are some interesting facts about what happens to your body when you quit, along with a nice time line from HealthBolt.net.

Click the image for a full size chart.

20 Minutes – blood pressure returns to normal
8 Hours – carbon monoxide levels in the blood stream drop by half, and oxygen levels retrun to normal
48 Hours – chance of having a heart attack will begin its long decline. All nicotine will have left the body, the sense of taste and smell will return to normal
72 Hours – bronchial tubes relax, over-all energy rises
2 Weeks – circulation increases, and continues to improve for 10 weeks
3-9 Months – coughs, wheezing, and breathing problems dissipate and lung capacity improves 10%
1 Year – risk of having a heart attack cut in half
5 Years – risk of having a stroke returns to that of non-smoker
10 Years – risk of lung cancer returns to that of non-smoker
15 Years – risk of heart attack returns to that of non-smoker

Conclusion: quit and you’ll be healthier!

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Factoids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.