Showing posts with label smoking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smoking. Show all posts

Friday, January 2, 2015

Making Your Resolutions Stick

New Year’s resolutions—they’re easy to make but easier to break. Why is it so hard to make the healthy changes that we know can help us feel better and live longer? And why is it so hard to make them last?

Following are tools that can help you remove the barriers to making good habits a part of your life:

Making Your Resolutions Stick
[Source: American Psychological Association]

How to Create Healthy Habits
[Source: NIH News in Health from the National Institutes of Health ]

Healthy Lifestyles, Healthy Outlook
[Source: UCSF Medical Center]

Behavior Modification Ideas for Weight Management
[Source: UCSF Medical Center]

Passing on Healthy Habits to Your Children
[Source: American Academy of Family Physicians]

Healthy Sleep Tips
[Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine]

Adopt Good Sleep Habits
[Source: Harvard Medical School]

Healthy living
[Source: MedlinePlus]

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Facts about Smoking and Help for Quitting

  • Cigarette smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals and compounds. Hundreds are toxic and at least 69 are known to cause cancer.
  • Damage from tobacco smoke is immediate; the chemicals in tobacco smoke reach your lungs quickly every time you inhale.
  • Low levels of smoke exposure, including exposures to secondhand tobacco smoke, lead to a rapid and sharp increase in dysfunction and inflammation of the lining of the blood vessels, which are implicated in heart attacks and stroke.
  • About 60 percent of American children ages 4-11 are exposed to secondhand smoke at home.
  • The list of diseases caused by smoking includes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema), coronary heart disease, stroke, abdominal aortic aneurysm, acute myeloid leukemia, cataract, pneumonia, periodontitis, and bladder, esophageal, laryngeal, lung, oral, throat, cervical, kidney, stomach, and pancreatic cancers. Smoking is also a major factor in a variety of other conditions and disorders, including slowed healing of wounds, infertility, and peptic ulcer disease.
  • Smoking has been linked to at least one-third of all cancer-related deaths in the U.S.
  • Smoking causes more than one in five deaths in America.
  • Smokers die significantly earlier than nonsmokers: 13.2 years for men and 14.5 years for women.
  • Since 1965, more than 45 percent of adults who have ever smoked have quit.
  • Quitting at any age and at any time is beneficial. It's never too late to quit.
[Compiled from the resources below]

Smoking Facts
[Source: American Lung Association]

Smoking - The Facts
[Source: MedlinePlus]

Smoking & Tobacco Use: Fast Facts
[Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]

How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: A Report of the Surgeon General (2010)

[Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services]

The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General (2014)
[Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services]

Smoking: Do you really know the risks?
[Source: American Heart Association]



Guide to Quitting Smoking
[Source: American Cancer Society]

Smoking Cessation Products
[Source: U.S. FDA]

How To Handle Withdrawal Symptoms and Triggers When You Decide To Quit Smoking
[Source: National Cancer Institute]

The UCSF Medical Center's Fontana Tobacco Treatment Center offers classes as well as individual consultations with doctors trained in treating tobacco addiction. They help smokers maximize the likelihood of success in their efforts to quit. Services include:
  •     Smoking Cessation Classes
  •     Relapse Prevention Program
  •     Doctor Consultation
For more information, to schedule an appointment or to enroll in a class, please contact the Fontana Tobacco Treatment Center at:

UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion
2330 Post St., Suite 420
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 885-7895

Note: The online enrollment link is tricky to find. Go to http://www.ucsfhealth.org/clinics/tobacco_treatment_center/ and click on Show More (above the map)

Monday, January 6, 2014

Making Your Resolutions Stick

New Year’s resolutions—they’re easy to make but easier to break. Why is it so hard to make the healthy changes that we know can help us feel better and live longer? And why is it so hard to make them last?

The Patient Health Librarian has compiled the following tools that can help you remove the barriers to making good habits a part of your life:

Making Your Resolutions Stick
[Source: American Psychological Association]

How to Create Healthy Habits
[Source: NIH News in Health from the National Institutes of Health ]

Healthy Lifestyles, Healthy Outlook
[Source: UCSF Medical Center]

Behavior Modification Ideas for Weight Management
[Source: UCSF Medical Center]

Passing on Healthy Habits to Your Children
[Source: American Academy of Family Physicians]

Healthy Sleep Tips
[Source: American Academy of Sleep Medicine]

Adopt Good Sleep Habits
[Source: Harvard Medical School]

Healthy living
[Source: MedlinePlus]

Monday, April 29, 2013

Facts about Smoking and Help for Quitting

  • Cigarette smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals and compounds. Hundreds are toxic and at least 69 are known to cause cancer.
  • Damage from tobacco smoke is immediate; the chemicals in tobacco smoke reach your lungs quickly every time you inhale.
  • Low levels of smoke exposure, including exposures to secondhand tobacco smoke, lead to a rapid and sharp increase in dysfunction and inflammation of the lining of the blood vessels, which are implicated in heart attacks and stroke.
  • About 60 percent of American children ages 4-11 are exposed to secondhand smoke at home.
  • The list of diseases caused by smoking includes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema), coronary heart disease, stroke, abdominal aortic aneurysm, acute myeloid leukemia, cataract, pneumonia, periodontitis, and bladder, esophageal, laryngeal, lung, oral, throat, cervical, kidney, stomach, and pancreatic cancers. Smoking is also a major factor in a variety of other conditions and disorders, including slowed healing of wounds, infertility, and peptic ulcer disease.
  • Smoking has been linked to at least one-third of all cancer-related deaths in the U.S.
  • Smoking causes more than one in five deaths in America.
  • Smokers die significantly earlier than nonsmokers: 13.2 years for men and 14.5 years for women.
  • Since 1965, more than 45 percent of adults who have ever smoked have quit.
  • Quitting at any age and at any time is beneficial. It's never too late to quit.
[Compiled from the resources below]

Smoking Facts
[Source: American Lung Association]

Smoking - The Facts
[Source: MedlinePlus]

Smoking & Tobacco Use: Fast Facts
[Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]

U.S. Surgeon General's Report on How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease
Executive Summary (PDF)
[Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Smoking: Do you really know the risks?
[Source: American Heart Association]



Guide to Quitting Smoking
[Source: American Cancer Society]

Smoking Cessation Products
[Source: U.S. FDA]

How To Handle Withdrawal Symptoms and Triggers When You Decide To Quit Smoking
[Source: National Cancer Institute]

The UCSF Medical Center's Fontana Tobacco Treatment Center offers classes as well as individual consultations with doctors trained in treating tobacco addiction. They help smokers maximize the likelihood of success in their efforts to quit. Services include:
  •     Smoking Cessation Classes
  •     Relapse Prevention Program
  •     Doctor Consultation
For more information, to schedule an appointment or to enroll in a class, please contact the Fontana Tobacco Treatment Center at:

UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion
2330 Post St., Suite 420
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 885-7895

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Breaking bad habits

Breaking Bad Habits: Why It’s So Hard to Change
(Excerpted from NIH News In Health, January 2012)

If you know something’s bad for you, why can’t you just stop? About 70% of smokers say they would like to quit. Drug and alcohol abusers struggle to give up addictions that hurt their bodies and tear apart families and friendships. And many of us have unhealthy excess weight that we could lose if only we would eat right and exercise more. So why don’t we do it?

“Habits play an important role in our health,” says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Understanding the biology of how we develop routines that may be harmful to us, and how to break those routines and embrace new ones, could help us change our lifestyles and adopt healthier behaviors.”

Habits can arise through repetition. They are a normal part of life, and are often helpful. “We wake up every morning, shower, comb our hair or brush our teeth without being aware of it,” Volkow says.

Habits can also develop when good or enjoyable events trigger the brain’s “reward” centers. This can set up potentially harmful routines, such as overeating, smoking, drug or alcohol abuse, gambling and even compulsive use of computers and social media.

The good news is, humans are not simply creatures of habit. We have many more brain regions to help us do what’s best for our health.

“Humans are much better than any other animal at changing and orienting our behavior toward long-term goals, or long-term benefits,” says Dr. Roy Baumeister, a psychologist at Florida State University. “We’ve found that you can improve your self-control by doing exercises over time,” Baumeister says.

Volkow notes that there’s no single effective way to break bad habits. “It’s not one size fits all,” she says.

One approach is to focus on becoming more aware of your unhealthy habits. Then develop strategies to counteract them. For example, habits can be linked in our minds to certain places and activities. You could develop a plan, say, to avoid walking down the hall where there’s a candy machine. Resolve to avoid going places where you’ve usually smoked. Stay away from friends and situations linked to problem drinking or drug use.

One way to kick bad habits is to actively replace unhealthy routines with new, healthy ones. Some people find they can replace a bad habit, even drug addiction, with another behavior, like exercising. “It doesn’t work for everyone,” Volkow says. “But certain groups of patients who have a history of serious addictions can engage in certain behaviors that are ritualistic and in a way compulsive—such as marathon running—and it helps them stay away from drugs. These alternative behaviors can counteract the urges to repeat a behavior to take a drug.”

Bad habits may be hard to change, but it can be done. Enlist the help of friends, co-workers and family for some extra support.



Making Your Resolutions Stick: How to Create Healthy Habits
[From NIH News in Health]

Eating habits and behaviors
[From MedlinePlus]

Choosing a Safe and Successful Weight-loss Program
[From the Weight-control Information Network / National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases]

Your Child's Habits
[From KidsHealth.org]

Friday, June 29, 2012

Health Newsletters at the Patient Health Library, June 2012

Not all information is free and not all of it is online!

The UCSF Patient Health Library subscribes to a number of health and wellness newsletters that are not otherwise free to the public. Here are some highlights from recent newsletters.

To see the entire articles, visit the Patient Health Library!

Consumer Reports on Health

June 2012
-Relieve dizziness without drugs, p.6
-Is it allergies or a sinus infection? pp.8-9
-The benefits of eating local, p.10

DukeMedicine HealthNews

Jan 2012
-New insight into rheumatoid arthritis management, pp.1-2
-Focus on raising HDL “good” cholesterol – Is it worth it? p.3
-Sleep and dementia, p.6

Feb 2012
-New approach to cataract surgery, pp.1-2
-Dietary supplements vs. food sources, pp.4-5

Harvard Health Letter

May 2012
-Mediterranean diet:  heart healthy AND brain healthy, pp.1-2
-Exposure to the blue light of electronics, p.4

Harvard Men's Health Watch

June 2012
-Minimize the chance of melanoma, pp.1,7
-Stop elbow pain, pp.4-5
-Red meat, p.6

Harvard Women's Health Watch

May 2012
-Managing osteoarthritis of the knee, pp.4-6

Mayo Clinic Health Letter

June 2012
-Palliative care, pp.4-5
-Stopping smoking, p.6
-Coffee and health, p.7

June 2012, supplement
-A look at digestive health problems


Medicine on the Net

April 2012
-Allergy resources, pp.7-13
-Otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat) resources, pp.14-19

Nutrition Action Newsletter

May 2012
-Food and Addiction, pp.1-7
-Keep It Small: food portions and dishes, p.10
-Decoding Cereal Boxes, pp.12-15

June 2012
-Can Dr. Oz be wrong about omega-6 fatty acids and coconut oil?, pp.6-7; 10-11
-BPA: the saga continues, p.9


Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Facts about Smoking and Help for Quitting

  • Cigarette smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals and compounds. Hundreds are toxic and at least 69 are known to cause cancer.
  • Damage from tobacco smoke is immediate; the chemicals in tobacco smoke reach your lungs quickly every time you inhale.
  • Low levels of smoke exposure, including exposures to secondhand tobacco smoke, lead to a rapid and sharp increase in dysfunction and inflammation of the lining of the blood vessels, which are implicated in heart attacks and stroke.
  • About 60 percent of American children ages 4-11 are exposed to secondhand smoke at home.
  • The list of diseases caused by smoking includes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema), coronary heart disease, stroke, abdominal aortic aneurysm, acute myeloid leukemia, cataract, pneumonia, periodontitis, and bladder, esophageal, laryngeal, lung, oral, throat, cervical, kidney, stomach, and pancreatic cancers. Smoking is also a major factor in a variety of other conditions and disorders, including slowed healing of wounds, infertility, and peptic ulcer disease.
  • Smoking has been linked to at least one-third of all cancer-related deaths in the U.S.
  • Smoking causes more than one in five deaths in America.
  • Smokers die significantly earlier than nonsmokers: 13.2 years for men and 14.5 years for women.
  • Since 1965, more than 45 percent of adults who have ever smoked have quit.
  • Quitting at any age and at any time is beneficial. It's never too late to quit.
[Compiled from the resources below]

Smoking Facts
From the American Lung Association

Smoking - The Facts
From MedlinePlus

U.S. Surgeon General's Report on How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease
Factsheet | Full report (PDF)
From the U.S. Surgeon General and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Smoking: Do you really know the risks?
From the American Heart Association



Guide to Quitting Smoking
From the American Cancer Society

Smoking Cessation Products
From the FDA

How To Handle Withdrawal Symptoms and Triggers When You Decide To Quit Smoking
From the National Cancer Institute

The UCSF Medical Center's Tobacco Education Center offers classes as well as individual consultations with doctors trained in treating tobacco addiction. They help smokers maximize the likelihood of success in their efforts to quit. Services include:
  •     Smoking Cessation Classes
  •     Relapse Prevention Program
  •     Doctor Consultation
For more information, to schedule an appointment or to enroll in a class, please contact the Tobacco Education Center at:

UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion
2330 Post St., Suite 420
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 885-7895

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Breaking bad habits

Breaking Bad Habits: Why It’s So Hard to Change
(Excerpted from NIH News In Health, January 2012)

If you know something’s bad for you, why can’t you just stop? About 70% of smokers say they would like to quit. Drug and alcohol abusers struggle to give up addictions that hurt their bodies and tear apart families and friendships. And many of us have unhealthy excess weight that we could lose if only we would eat right and exercise more. So why don’t we do it?

“Habits play an important role in our health,” says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Understanding the biology of how we develop routines that may be harmful to us, and how to break those routines and embrace new ones, could help us change our lifestyles and adopt healthier behaviors.”

Habits can arise through repetition. They are a normal part of life, and are often helpful. “We wake up every morning, shower, comb our hair or brush our teeth without being aware of it,” Volkow says.

Habits can also develop when good or enjoyable events trigger the brain’s “reward” centers. This can set up potentially harmful routines, such as overeating, smoking, drug or alcohol abuse, gambling and even compulsive use of computers and social media.

The good news is, humans are not simply creatures of habit. We have many more brain regions to help us do what’s best for our health.

“Humans are much better than any other animal at changing and orienting our behavior toward long-term goals, or long-term benefits,” says Dr. Roy Baumeister, a psychologist at Florida State University. “We’ve found that you can improve your self-control by doing exercises over time,” Baumeister says.

Volkow notes that there’s no single effective way to break bad habits. “It’s not one size fits all,” she says.

One approach is to focus on becoming more aware of your unhealthy habits. Then develop strategies to counteract them. For example, habits can be linked in our minds to certain places and activities. You could develop a plan, say, to avoid walking down the hall where there’s a candy machine. Resolve to avoid going places where you’ve usually smoked. Stay away from friends and situations linked to problem drinking or drug use.

One way to kick bad habits is to actively replace unhealthy routines with new, healthy ones. Some people find they can replace a bad habit, even drug addiction, with another behavior, like exercising. “It doesn’t work for everyone,” Volkow says. “But certain groups of patients who have a history of serious addictions can engage in certain behaviors that are ritualistic and in a way compulsive—such as marathon running—and it helps them stay away from drugs. These alternative behaviors can counteract the urges to repeat a behavior to take a drug.”

Bad habits may be hard to change, but it can be done. Enlist the help of friends, co-workers and family for some extra support.



Making Your Resolutions Stick: How to Create Healthy Habits
[From NIH News in Health]

Eating habits and behaviors
[From MedlinePlus]

Choosing a Safe and Successful Weight-loss Program
[From the Weight-control Information Network / National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases]

Your Child's Habits
[From KidsHealth.org]

Friday, July 9, 2010

Facts about Smoking and Help for Quitting

[Click on the image for a larger version]
The Facts About Cigarettes

(Data compiled from cdc.gov, cancer.org, and listverse.com. Originally posted at OnlineSchools.org / www.onlineschools.org)



The UCSF Medical Center's Tobacco Education Center offers classes as well as individual consultations with doctors trained in treating tobacco addiction. They help smokers maximize the likelihood of success in their efforts to quit. Services include:
  • Smoking Cessation Classes
  • Relapse Prevention Program
  • Doctor Consultation
For more information, to schedule an appointment or to enroll in a class, please contact the Tobacco Education Center at:

UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion
2330 Post St., Suite 420
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 885-7895



See also the UCSF Legacy Tobacco Documents Library. This digital library contains more than 11 million documents created by major tobacco companies related to their advertising, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and scientific research activities. The library also includes video and audio clips and court transcripts.