Nearly everyone realizes that smoking is damaging to the health of smokers, and most people know that passive, secondhand smoke endangers nonsmokers. Nevertheless, a number of popular smoking myths persist, some of which understate the health risks of smoking. Other myths understate the difficulty of quitting, or lead people to attempt to quit in ineffective ways.
Effect of Nicotine
Although tobacco smoke contains at least 60 known carcinogens, nicotine isn't one of them, according to Dr. Richard Hurt of the Nicotine Dependence Center at the Mayo Clinic. This means switching to low-nicotine cigarettes provides no health benefits other than possibly reducing your dependence on nicotine. It also means nicotine replacement products, such as nicotine gum, cannot give you cancer.
Addiction
Many people, especially nonsmokers, see smoking as simply a bad habit that can be dropped at any time with the simple exercise of will power. In fact, nicotine causes physiological changes in the brain that amount to physical addiction, says Hurt. Aurora Health Care reports that some people find nicotine to be as addictive as heroin. Smokers also develop a tolerance to nicotine, meaning they need to smoke more over time to get the same effect.
Smoking and Pregnancy
There is no safe level of smoking while pregnant, according to Smoke Free Women, a subdivision of the National Cancer Institute. Even a few cigarettes a day can expose your baby to health risks. Although it is best never to smoke while pregnant, you can reduce the damage by quitting at any time during pregnancy--smoking for five months of a pregnancy, for example, is not as damaging as smoking for all nine months.
Quitting
Many people abandon their efforts to quit if they fail the first time. In fact, however, it takes most ex-smokers more than one attempt to kick the habit for good, advises Aurora Health Care. It is also a good idea not to try to quit smoking "cold turkey" if that means immediately quitting without some form of assistance. Try medication such as nicotine gum or Bupropion SR and seek counseling to develop an individualized quit strategy.
Secondhand Smoke
Many people believe that even short periods of exposure to secondhand smoke puts a nonsmoker at risk. Actually, this idea is controversial, although nearly every scientist agrees that long-term exposure is dangerous. The U.S. surgeon general's Report says no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke exists. Michael Siegel, a physician and professor of Community Health Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health, contradicts this conclusion by asserting that the effects of exposure to a few minutes of secondhand smoking are "completely reversible" and do not cause the arteries to harden.
