published in\u00a0BMC Medicine<\/a>, followed 178,000 people over time and provides the first detailed evidence to date on smoking and cause of death in Australia, finding that smoking increases the risk of dying from 23 common causes including heart disease.<\/p>\nSenior author for the research, Professor Emily Banks (whose previous work has been funded by the Heart Foundation) said it is now estimated that 24,000 people in Australia or 66 people per day lose their life to the addictive habit, up from previous projections of 20,500 per year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is bad news, of course, but it\u2019s also good news that we have this knowledge. For a long time, tobacco companies have denied the harm smoking causes,\u201d Prof Banks said.<\/p>\n
Even \u2018light smoking\u2019 is terribly bad for heart health<\/p>\n
Prof Banks said people often underestimated the impact of smoking, including so-called \u2018light smoking\u2019 only a few cigarettes each day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe chances are that if you smoke, even a little, you will die prematurely or suffer chronic disease because of it,\u201d Prof Banks said.<\/p>\n
Keep trying \u2013 before it\u2019s too late<\/p>\n
Melbourne man Chris Harrison, 55, considers himself lucky to be alive after an unhealthy lifestyle including heavy smoking culminated in a heart attack in 2022.<\/p>\n
Remarkably, he survived the heart attack and went on to spend nine weeks in hospital recovering from quadruple bypass surgery.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no lead up to these things; sometimes it\u2019s a diagnosis or it\u2019s fatal,\u201d Mr Harrison said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big eye-opener and I haven\u2019t wanted a cigarette since the heart attack. I haven\u2019t had a craving because I know where it can end up. Being in hospital for so long with tubes coming out of my chest; it was confronting and much more overpowering than wanting to have another cigarette.\u201dMr Harrison urged others to keep trying to quit, even if they were light smokers, or not to be tempted to try a cigarette at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t miss what you don\u2019t know. There\u2019s no benefit to it, it doesn\u2019t make you happy or give you money, just don\u2019t do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would never have thought it would take a heart attack to make me quit smoking, but it did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting help quitting<\/p>\n
Heart Foundation CEO, David Lloyd, said it was normal for people to need to try quitting many times.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany people slip up after they quit and start smoking again,\u201d Mr Lloyd said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important not see this as a failure. Instead, think about what made you smoke again. Ask yourself: how can you deal with this situation next time?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou will become better at quitting each time you try.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you are a smoker and are ready to quit, thinking about quitting, or want to help someone else to quit, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about giving up smoking or call the Quitline on 13 7848 or visit the Quit website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2018Don\u2019t give up: Heart Foundation encourages smokers to keep trying to quit It comes as new research shows tobacco smoke kills more people in Australia than previously thought The Heart Foundation is urging Australia\u2019s 1.8 million smokers not to give up trying to quit. The supportive call comes as detailed new research by the Australian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13435,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13434,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13433\/revisions\/13434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pacificposts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}