Home
GSK in focus
Kicking the habit

Kicking the habit

Over a billion people worldwide smoke tobacco, yet it is the leading preventable cause of death globally. So what is the fascination with this lethal leaf?

Anybody who has tried to give up smoking more than once without success might appreciate Mark Twain's quip: "Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it a thousand times."

Yet stopping is "the single most important step that smokers can take to enhance the length and quality of their lives", according to the US Surgeon General. And the main culprit in this battle to quit is the addiction to nicotine, a drug naturally found in tobacco.

Over 35 million smokers try to quit each year, yet fewer than five per cent reach their first anniversary. For these smokers the key to stopping may seem elusive, but the facts of nicotine addiction are clear.

Nicotine from smoking changes the structure and function of the brain. When the brain stops getting the nicotine it is used to, the smoker feels a craving for nicotine (not for a cigarette, as smokers sometimes think). It is an addiction that for some smokers can be as relentless and gripping as cocaine or heroin.

There are certainly compelling reasons to kick the habit. The statistics are stark and suffocating. Globally, tobacco consumption is the leading preventable cause of death, having billowed from origins that can be traced back thousands of years to today's world of an estimated 1.3 billion smokers.

It's a world where this year alone five million people will die from tobacco-related diseases, a number that the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates will nearly double by 2020 if consumption patterns continue.

Tobacco arrived in Europe at the end of the 15th century and grew rapidly in popularity, backed by the sort of health claims that today would look quaint if they were not so dangerously ridiculous.

The dangers of smoking were firmly established in the 1950s. It is not only the developed world that carries the burden. Tobacco consumption worldwide is increasing, especially in low- to middle-income countries.

“The tobacco industry has a huge potential market in these countries, where they often face weaker tobacco control measures and find a greater number of possible new customers, among women in particular,” says WHO, adding that the regulation of tobacco is key to controlling the escalating global epidemic, one that is “increasingly ravaging countries and regions that can least afford its toll of disability, disease, lost productivity and death”.

And it is not only habitual smokers who are at risk of disease. Many others exposed to second-hand tobacco smoke are at risk.

The effects of tobacco on health are fearsome. Cancer of the lung, throat and mouth, chronic pulmonary disease, emphysema and bronchitis, stroke and heart attacks are on the established list. Joining them more recently, however, are conditions such as cataracts, pneumonia and stomach cancer.

The patterns of death and disease from tobacco vary. In the US, vascular disease and lung cancer predominate, while in China, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) causes more tobacco-related deaths than lung cancer. In India, where chewing tobacco is common, oral cancer is a major killer.

Although nicotine is the addictive agent, it's the thousands of other chemicals in tobacco that cause disease and death. A 2002 report from the Department of Health in Western Australia lists the following chemicals that you inhale when you smoke cigarettes:

acetone (used as paint stripper)
ammonia (found in floor cleaner)
toluene (found in industrial solvent)
butane (a type of light fuel)
naphthalene (found in mothballs)
methanol (used as rocket fuel)

And if this doesn’t put the smoker off, the report adds that tobacco additionally contains known cancer-causing substances such as naphthylamine, pyrene, vinyl chloride, urethane and toluidine. If this cocktail doesn’t have enough kick already, it also has hydrogen cyanide (a very poisonous substance).

All in all, it should be enough to help make anyone quit smoking. Even Mark Twain.

Aids to quitting

GSK is committed to smoking cessation as part of its mission to help people do more, feel better and live longer.

The company markets some of the leading nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) brands. Their names vary according the market but include NiQuitin, Nicabate, NicoDerm CQ and Commit. GSK Consumer Healthcare, L.P. markets Nicorette nicotine gum in the United States.

Available as patches, gums or lozenges, they deliver a source of nicotine in a controlled way to help smokers deal with the withdrawal symptoms associated with quitting smoking. Since they became non-prescription products 10 years ago, these NRTs have helped more than 5 million smokers around the world to quit.

In the UK, help in quitting smoking is available at:
www.click2quit.co.uk

In the US, help is available at:
www.nicorette.com
www.commitlozenge.com
www.nicodermcq.com
www.way2Quit.com
www.committedquitters.com

World No Tobacco Day 2006

The World Health Organization created the annual World No Tobacco Day (WNTD), first held in 1988, to highlight the tobacco epidemic and the preventable death and disease that tobacco consumption causes. GSK is a member of the Coalition for WNTD.

Each annual event, held on 31 May, has a theme. This year, WHO has chosen “Tobacco: Deadly in any form or disguise”, explaining that tobacco consumption comes in many forms.