Smoking: Health24: Man

Weekly Poll

What's your top choice to prevent flu?

YOU ARE IN > Man > Drink and drugs > Smoking

Man

Smoking

Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances you can put into your body, and if you're doing it 10 - 20 times a day, it can turn ugly later on, in the form of lung cancer.

But smokers have heard it all before. The same old thing, that smoking can kill you, and that it puts those around you in danger. But that doesn't mean you as a smoker shouldn't know about what you are doing to yourself every time you light up. This section can help.

Behind the Smoke Screen

From bone loss to impotence, count the ways tobacco is bad for your body. Lung cancer and heart disease are known to be the lethal results of smoking.

Can’t I still smoke occasionally?

Commit to quit smoking

Quitting smoking is hard, there's no doubt about it. However, if you can tough it out for at least two years, chances are good you'll never light another cigarette again.

How smoking affects your heart

In South Africa, seven million people smoke, 80% have tried to quit at least once and 90% of people started smoking before the age of 18. Here's how it affects your heart health.

Smoking affects your skin

Smoking accelerates the natural ageing processes, which is most apparent in the facial skin.

5 ways to quit smoking

The benefits of smoking cessation are clear: only 20 minutes after a smoker’s last cigarette, blood pressure and heart rate start to return to normal.

Law catches up with smokers

Smoking kills up to 50 000 South Africans a year and is a huge burden on the health care system and economy. So what's being done to curb what are essentially preventable deaths?

‘Light’ or ‘mild’ cigarettes

‘Safer’ cigarettes, such as low tar, filtered or menthol cigarettes aren’t really safer. Their health benefits are minor, and are often counteracted by how they are smoked.

Can't I just cut down?

Cigars and pipe tobacco

Some cigarette smokers switch to pipes or cigars in the belief that this is a less dangerous form of smoking. But pipe and cigar smokers are also at increased risk.

Frequently asked questions

Find out what second-hand smoke is, what is in it and how it affects you.

Quit Day and beyond

Quit Day is a pretty momentous occasion. It is, quite literally, the start of a new life.

A time bomb in your smokes?

Smokers have been accused of just about everything except the 9/11 attack and child slavery in the Middle East. The following facts will make you consider your long term health.

What makes you smoke?

Understanding why you smoke is an important step in giving up. There may be more than one reason, of course.

13 strange ways to get high

From getting high off the fumes of fermented faeces to drinking aftershave to get drunk, these are some of the weirder and very ill-advised ways people have tried to get high.