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Written By: Editorial Team | Published : July 13, 2014 10:54 AM IST
Scientists claim that larger warning signs on cigarette packets can influence people to quit smoking. Study's lead author, Hua-Hie Yong, PhD said that though warning labels vary widely from country to country, it's clear that once people see the labels, the same psychological and emotional processes are involved in making people consider quitting smoking. For smokers who said they paid attention to the labels, simply seeing them was enough to make them think about the health risks of smoking, which made them less likely to smoke a cigarette. People who didn't think much about the health risks were more likely to say that those risks were exaggerated, and were likelier to say that they enjoyed smoking too much to give it up. However, smokers who consciously avoided the labels by covering them up or by keeping them out of sight still reported thinking often about the health risks and about quitting.
Researchers conducted telephone surveys of over 5,000 smokers in the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom from 2007 to 2009, and then followed up with them one year later. Smokers answered a series of questions, including how many cigarettes they smoked a day and how often they noticed warning labels on cigarette packages. Researchers also asked them if warning labels made them think about smoking's health risks, if the labels made them think about quitting and if they actively tried to avoid looking at the warnings. They collected other demographic information, such as gender, age and education level. (Read: Quit smoking naturally the yoga way to kick the butt)
The sample came from the International Tobacco Control Four-Country Survey, a longitudinal study assessing the impact of tobacco control policies around the world. For this study, 43 percent of participants were men and the number of participants was about equally divided among the four countries. Participants smoked an average of 17 cigarettes a day and 37 percent reported trying to quit at least once at the one-year follow-up. Because noticing the warnings may be the first step toward getting smokers to think about and attempt to quit, the authors suggested policymakers require that warnings be larger and more graphic on cigarette packages and that they are supplemented with mass media campaigns with similar health warnings. (Read: 10 reasons smoking is bad for you)
The study is published in the American Psychological Association journal Health Psychology.
Here are few things that happen inside your body when you smoke
Your first drag:
1. Whether you light your cigarette using a matchstick or a lighter, the first puff is the most damaging. The smoke emitted from the match and the cigarette form a strong cocktail that can leave the mucous lining in your nose damaged.
2. Apart from that the heat from the cigarette affects the skin on your face and most importantly around your nose and mouth. The heat causes your lips to darken, leads to wrinkles and the appearance of age spots. Another reason for darkening of a smokers lips is the fact that the tar in the cigarette tends to adhere to the lips, soon staining them.
3. Not to mention the constant pouting and sucking that one has to do in order to take a puff also leads to what is known as a smoker's pout. Where when you pout you will see the appearance of fine lines around the lips something that does not happen in non-smokers.
Read more about the 6 most common myths about smoking busted.
What the smoke does to the insides of your mouth:
4. When the smoke is inside your mouth, the tar starts to coat the enamel of your teeth, discolouring them.
5. The heat from the smoke also damages the cells in and around your mouth, and in some cases leading to a change in their DNA causing mutations. Once inside the mouth the tar and other chemicals affect all parts of your oral cavity.
6. The chemicals present in a cigarette are numerous and they form a coat your tongue, palate and the inside of your cheeks. It deadens your taste buds, hyperactivates your salivary glands and eventually blocks them, leading to a lack of saliva in your mouth. That is also one of the reasons smokers need a drink of water after a smoke.
7. The tar and chemicals also coat the roof of your mouth, leading to a condition called the 'smoker's palate' where the roof of your mouth gets coated with a whitish residue with small red spots protruding from it. These protrusions are actually the opening of ducts of glands present on the palate.
8. Smoking also kills the good bacteria within your mouth, giving way to bad breath and a condition called oral thrush.
9. It also leads to gum disease, discolours your gums turning them black, leads to cavities and causes oral cancer. This is mainly because the heat combined with the chemicals in smoke tend to damage cells leading to mutations and change in their DNA. This change may affect either their mechanism of multiplying in a uniform manner or the one that stops their multiplication.
10. Smoking also affects your olfactory system (nose) leading an eventual loss in your ability to smell. Read more about 25 things that happen inside your body when you smoke
With inputs from ANI
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