Letter to a smoking girl

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

F. Uglov is the world famous and oldest practicing surgeon, academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, professor of the Department of Hospital Surgery of the St. Petersburg State Medical University named after academician I. P. Pavlov, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Chairman of the St. Petersburg Society of Surgeons and Union of the Struggle for Popular Sobriety”. In 2004, F. Uglov celebrated the 75th anniversary of his surgical activity, he died on June 22, 2008, at the age of 104 years.

LETTER TO A SMOKING GIRL

I meet hundreds of your smoking peers on the streets. I have operated hundreds of people for lung cancer. And hundreds - I did not make a reservation - hundreds had to refuse, because nothing could be done … There is nothing more difficult for a surgeon than refusing to help a patient due to his own impotence. And more than once I had to admit my powerlessness when it came to saving the affected lungs and the lives of long-term smokers.

In recent years, a large number of female smokers have entered the operating tables. I'm not scaring you. Smoking is "voluntary". Just since you started reading my letter, let me express your opinion, so that later your despair does not break my heart. The opinion of not only a surgeon (unfortunately, unable to visually show you on these pages a cancerous tumor that suffocated the lungs), but also a person who knows the value of suffering.

Hundreds of people have passed through my hands and my heart, suffering precisely from the fact that they could not part with their addiction in time. The complaints are the same and begin with the phrase: "Something is wrong with my lungs …" Once a good friend of mine turned to me with the same words. We agreed to meet, but he came only a few months later. When his chest was opened on the operating table, it turned out that everything had already grown with metastases and nothing could be done to help him. It's hard to know that a sick person is dying. It is even harder that this is your close friend …

These lines addressed to you will contain facts and figures found by my associates. But I, a surgeon, can imagine with particular clarity what is behind these numbers and percentages.

No, I will not frighten you with the already commonplace examples that a drop of nicotine kills a horse - you are not a horse, you are a human, or that 20 daily smoked cigarettes shorten life by 8-12 years; you are young and life seems endless to you. According to British doctors, each smoked cigarette costs a smoker 15 minutes of life. It's no big deal if you're only twenty. What do you care about the fact that heavy smokers get lung cancer 30 times more often than non-smokers, and the cause of this terrible disease in 95-98 cases out of 100 is smoking. American cardiologists cite the following figures: the average age of those who died from heart attacks is 67 years, smokers - 47. You are only twenty years old, and up to forty-seven more … Of course, it will not scare you. And still…

With great chagrin, I see how the girls are smoking near the school, holding a cigarette in their fists (as they say, "in a pioneer way") so that they do not see from the windows. I regret to learn that they learned to smoke, taking the teacher as a model.

The pain grips my soul from the fact that in the student dormitory girls are going to smoke and chat about future marriage. I can admit that marriage is not yet visible in your plans. And therefore I will tell you about something else.

Sociologists conducted an anonymous questionnaire in which they asked: why do you smoke? 60 percent of the girls answered: it is beautiful and fashionable. And 40 percent smoke because they want to please boys. Let's admit. And we will even "justify" them in some way. Because the desire to be liked is inherent in you by nature. But we will justify temporarily: it is not out of place to know the opinions of the boys.

256 young men were interviewed. They were offered three questions and, accordingly, three possible answers: positive, indifferent, negative.

Question one: “Girls smoke in your company. How do you feel about this? - 4% positive, 54% indifferent, 42% negative.

Question two: “The girl you are friends with smokes. How do you feel about this? - 1% positive, 15% indifferent, 84% negative.

Question three: "Would you like your wife to smoke?" - A storm of protests! Out of 256, only two said they didn't care. The rest strongly objected.

Now let's think together. You are far from lung surgery. You are not going to get married. Everything is fine and you smoke. Where did this come from? In my opinion, people smoke in those companies where they gather for a fun pastime. A cigarette in your hands is like a signal: you are modern. This means that you treat both love and friendship with a great deal of frivolity.

Boys with smoking girls behave more relaxed, and girls, in their naivety, believe that they are successful, hardly thinking that they are temporary fun. Yes, yes, you smoking girl is temporary fun. It seems to me that by lighting a cigarette, you reduce the cost of yourself, humiliate your dignity, becoming not modern in the true sense of the word, but rather frivolous and more accessible. Who instilled in you the "fashion" of this terrible habit? Who programmed you for a lesson in which your youth does not allow you to see the whole catastrophe awaiting you?

Don't be angry, but I will try to draw your future as it appears to me. And if you doubt it, look around, look at the smoking women older than you.

Smoking will make your voice hoarse, gradually turn black, and your teeth will deteriorate. The complexion will take on an earthy tint. Your sense of smell will be severely affected and your sense of taste will deteriorate. You've probably already noticed how often smokers spit. I don’t know if you had time to notice that a smell constantly comes from the mouth of a smoker … This smell is so unpleasant that do not be surprised if one of your familiar guys avoids you. You will wake up with a bitter mouth and a headache from coughing all night. Very early on, your skin will become wrinkled and dry. Female smokers at the age of 25 look much older than their nonsmokers. This is the real price of your smoking! You will not attract, but, on the contrary, alienate any serious guy.

Try to imagine yourself next to a non-smoker of the same age. And if this comparison doesn’t scare you or you don’t see the difference between you, let me tell you that your appearance is not the main indicator yet.

The sooner you start smoking, the more dangerous the effects of the poison of tobacco smoke are for you. And if you become addicted to smoking long before age-related changes begin in you, then the development of the body will go slower. Under the influence of nicotine, a persistent narrowing of blood vessels occurs (the oxygen content in the blood decreases due to the combination of blood hemoglobin with carbon monoxide - one of the components of tobacco smoke). When smoking under the influence of high temperatures, 30 harmful substances are released from tobacco: nicotine, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, nitrogen, carbon monoxide and various essential oils. Among them, benzopyrene is especially dangerous - one hundred percent carcinogen ("carcinogen" - in Latin - cancer).

If you are curious, you might be interested in the data of American researchers. They found a significant amount of polonium-210 in tobacco smoke, which emits alpha particles. If you smoke one pack of cigarettes personally, you will receive a dose of radiation seven times higher than that established by the international agreement on protection against radiation.

Nicotine is a drug. This is the only way it is called by the highest body of world medicine - the World Health Organization. And this means that every year it will be more difficult for you. Tobacco, narrowing blood vessels, not only causes increased work of the heart, but also worsens and destroys the activity of many body systems.

You lit a cigarette … Then everything goes according to the well-known scheme. Nicotine briefly causes blood vessels to dilate, increasing the blood supply to the brain cells. This is followed by a sharp vasospasm, resulting in various brain disorders. Further. Nicotine disrupts the functions of the nervous system, lungs, liver, digestive organs, and gonads.

It is irrefutably proven: you will get sick three to four times more often than your non-smoking girlfriends. The time will inevitably come when you will feel bad and constant discomfort will turn your life into a burden.

But let's talk about something else. Maybe you will be interested to know that women suffer heavily from smoking because of the more delicate structure of the body, which by nature is designed for procreation. For a long time, facts have been known that hard smokers cannot give birth to children, since there have been profound changes in the embryonic apparatus. The most common complication of smoking is premature termination of pregnancy - up to 36 weeks. Smokers have it twice as often. It does not bother you to know that women who smoke are much more likely to have prematurity and less weight of a newborn (yes, a newborn, your baby, which you probably don't think about, but your smoking will affect its viability). Smokers have a higher percentage of stillborn children and more often pathologies during childbirth. And the undoubted fact is that smoking has an extremely negative effect on the development of an already born child. Knowing this, it makes sense to think about marriage, about a husband who will wait for a son, but may not have a son … And the day may come when the doctors will say to you: "Unfortunately, you will never be able to give birth."

Now it's hard for you to understand. But my experience suggests hundreds of such cases. A woman who smokes is imperceptibly approaching a critical moment, after which she can no longer give birth, although for this she is ready for anything, for any operation, for any sacrifice. And believe me, you will not be an exception: nature created you to be a mother. And no matter how you swagger today, she will make you live in the interests of children.

Trust me, a cigarette can cripple your life. Yours first. And when they prove to you that smoking is to blame for everything, you will curse yourself and your whole life. Think about not having children. And the husband can leave you. He will go to a less worthy one than you, just because of the right to be called a father. Believe me, he can do this, because paternal feelings are no less strong than maternal ones.

And if you smoke while pregnant, then know that it has been established by experiment: as soon as a pregnant woman smokes, in a few minutes nicotine enters (through the placenta) into the heart and brain of the unborn child. And with this poison you unwittingly poison him. Scientists have traced the developmental features of children born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy. These children, observed up to 5-6 years of age, lagged significantly behind in their physical and mental development. By the way, among children whose fathers are heavy smokers, malformations are observed twice as often.

And all the time your child will be sick. Both pneumonia and bronchitis await him. In despair, you will look for reasons, not knowing that they are in you. Even if you smoked in the hallway, on the staircase, even a tiny fraction of the smoke entering the room will be enough for your child to suddenly rise in temperature.

In mothers who smoke, one hundred percent of children smoke. And your child, who considers you the most intelligent, affectionate, kind, seeing you with a cigarette, will also start smoking. And this means that you programmed him in advance for the same torment that awaits you.

My experience tells me a scary case involving teen smoking. In one of the boarding schools in the morning they could not wake up the boy. He died at night. An autopsy showed that he had a bad heart - because he learned to smoke early, smoked a lot, and on the eve of his death, as the guys said, he had gotten “full”.

In families where the parents smoked, but then stopped, nevertheless, 67 percent of boys and 78 percent of girls begin to smoke.

According to the WHO, 80 percent of children who smoke continue this bad habit as adults. It has already been established that if a teenager smokes at least two cigarettes, then in 70 cases out of 100 he will smoke all his life. Think!

Now I would like to know why you smoke. You probably think you look prettier? In vain. It is a momentary pleasure to see yourself from the side with a cigarette sandwiched between your fingers. You are one of those who are not aware of what they are doing, and when you tell them, they say helplessly: "I can't quit!" … And please don't refer to the artists you see on screens with a cigarette. I would classify your hobby not as youthful stupidity, but as a crime against myself. Yes, yes, you can write yourself a memo in three words: "Smoking is slow suicide".

And already in the near future you will be able to make sure that this is exactly the case. It is a pity that at your most difficult stage of life you will need my help as a surgeon … In the meantime, I can warn you that smoking will doom you to frequent illnesses. This is angina pectoris, and a heart attack at a young age, and a stomach ulcer. In a study of 205 people who died of a heart attack at the age of 44, it was found that only two did not smoke. Among patients with stomach cancer, 95 percent are smokers. And if a smoker has not yet developed lung cancer, then in the vast majority of cases there is already a precancerous condition. Smokers have three to four times the death rate from stomach ulcers.

According to the WHO, in which a lot and persistently study the problem of smoking, every fifth person dies from causes associated with tobacco use. If this is applied to our conditions, then we lose five hundred thousand people every year! Among them may be you, your husband, your children, friends and acquaintances.

And the last thing. I understand that in search of reasons to justify your lack of will, you can say: "If this is so bad, why sell tobacco products in such abundance?" Tobacco industry incentives believe they are getting great benefits. However, these are illusions. The country and the people lose much more from tobacco than they gain. Today WHO is launching the slogan: “Smoking or health? Choose yourself! "

I am a doctor and I must offer you the same.