Professional Hospital Furnishers
Thank you for Visiting Us at MEDICA 2003 - Download catalogues in PDF format - Order now & avail 10 / 20% discount - Liposuction Canulas for Cosmetic Surgery now in production


  PRODUCT CATALOGUE
  find the required instrument...

 

type in the name of instrument & click GO 
  optional search by...

alphabet.gif

  Order Catalogues
  Free Downloads
   MEMBERS
























   Contact Us
   Product Range
   Accreditations
   Production Operations
   Future Plans
   Testimonials...




Articles back

It's Never Too Late to Kick The Habit


Study Links Lung Function to Long-Term Survival
Maggie smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for 20 years. "I started by 'coming up to Cool' and hung around for a 'long way, Baby,'" she recalls. By 1994, she couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without breathing hard and her skin had long since lost anything like a rosy glow.
Two weeks ago -- Aug. 31 -- marked Maggie's six-year anniversary as a nonsmoker. Today she still pants going up stairs, but it takes about five flights to get that reaction. She works out 30 minutes a day and a quick look in the mirror confirms that she is "in the pink."
Maggie's story confirms scientific findings reported by a team of researchers from Finland: it is never too late to kick the nicotine habit. Even smokers with significantly impaired lung function will live longer if they quit smoking, according to a study in the September issue of Thorax involving nearly 1,600 middle-aged Finnish men who were followed for 30 years.
Men with the worst lung function when the study began actually "benefited especially from smoking cessation," according to the researchers. Men who quit smoking lived six to seven years longer than the men who kept lighting up.
Holger J. Sch�nemann, MD, MS, an assistant professor of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at State University of New York at Buffalo, tells that he agrees entirely with the findings of the study. Sch�nemann is author of a study in the September issue of CHEST that suggests that lung function is highly predictive of long-term survival in the general population. Sch�nemann reports on 29 years of follow-up of patients Unrolled in the Buffalo Health Study.
"We found similar results in a different population -- both men and women -- but the important message is that survival can be improved if the person quits smoking," says Sch�nemann. "We have known for a long time that if smokers quit it will slow the decline in lung function. There is a natural decline with age but smoking worsens that decline. These data from the [Finnish study] demonstrated that the decline can be slowed."
Sch�nemann says the study from Finland as well as his study underline the importance of lung function tests. "These can be done in a [doctor's] office using a handheld device," says Sch�nemann. "For things like life insurance or employment physicals or even annual checkups, the lung function should be included."
For smokers, he says, this lung function test is especially important because "you can give them a number. You can say to the smoker, 'See this is your lung function. If your lung function doesn't improve, your risk of dying is this percentage.'" In his paper Sch�nemann reported that people whose lung function was in the lowest 20% were more than twice as likely to have a fatal heart attack as persons who had better lung function scores.

back

 

home.gif help.gif email.gif

 subscribe to newsletter
 

go.gif 

Download Now



bnr_right02.gif

bnr_right03.gif
 


DESIGNED & POWERED BY
SOLINCS

copyright 2002 - professional hospital furnishers