Lung cancer 

The UK's number 4 cancer takes your breath away...

There are 40,000+ lung cancer deaths in the UK every year.
That's more than 100 deaths every day. 

72% of lung cancer cases in the UK are caused by smoking.

The problem with lung cancer detection...

What makes lung cancer problematic and hard to detect is that there are rarely any early signs of the disease.  

See this NHS 2023 Press release about New lung cancer screening roll out to detect cancer sooner.

Anything you smoke will kill you...

Although people who have never smoked can develop lung cancer, smoking is the most common cause (accounting for more than 70 out of 100 cases). This is because smoking involves regularly inhaling a number of different toxic substances.

Lung cancer mainly affects older people. It's rare in people younger than 40. More than 4 out of 10 people diagnosed with lung cancer in the UK are aged 75 and older.

Vaping

Shisha

While nothing you breath into your lungs can be deemed 100% safe, vaping is less harmful than smoking, but it's still not safe. E-cigarettes heat nicotine (extracted from tobacco), flavourings and other chemicals to create an aerosol that you inhale. Regular tobacco cigarettes contain 7,000 chemicals, many of which are toxic.

The NHS have however stated that they're classed as 95% less harmful than regular tobacco and cigarette smoking. 

Let's wait and see what medical science comes up with in years to come!

Shisha tobacco is usually a combination of tobacco prepared in molasses and flavoured with fruit flavours. Shisha smoke contains large amounts of nicotine, carbon monoxide, tar and other toxins. The water in the shisha does not remove any of the toxins.

In a shisha session, a smoker can inhale the same amount of smoke as a cigarette smoker consuming over 100 cigarettes.

Shisha smoking is popular the middle east and is becoming increasingly popular in the UK.

Cigars

A single large cigar can contain as much tobacco as an entire pack of cigarettes.

Cigar smoke has a higher level of cancer-causing substances. During the fermentation process for cigar tobacco, high concentrations of cancer-causing nitrosamines are produced. These compounds are released when a cigar is smoked. 

Pipes

Like cigarettes, smoking pipe tobacco is not safe. Pipe tobacco contains many of the harmful chemicals found in cigarettes, including nitrosamines,  nicotine and toxic chemicals known to cause cancer. Smoking pipe tobacco is addictive, and users have an increased risk of head and neck, liver, and lung cancers.

Nitrosamines are considered to be strong carcinogens that may produce cancer in diverse organs and tissues including lung, brain, liver, kidney, bladder, stomach, oesophagus, and nasal sinus.

You just have to STOP SMOKING... 

Cigarettes, pipes, cigars and shisha contain:

  • nicotine
  • tar
  • carbon monoxide
  • heavy metals such as arsenic and lead

These chemicals can make the walls of your arteries sticky, so fatty material can stick to them. If the arteries that carry blood to your heart get damaged and clogged, it can lead to a heart attack. If this happens in the arteries that carry blood to your brain it can lead to a stroke. Basically it's Goodnight Vienna!

Look again at the stage 4 survival rate (above). Given how difficult it is to detect lung cancer, the odds of surviving lung cancer are not on your side. 

Get support from NHS Stop Smoking Services near you or call the Smoke Free National Helpline on 0300 123 1044 (England only). Support is also available in Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.

 

Go find a way to stop inhaling all this bloody shit;
otherwise it's Goodnight Vienna [1]

 

[1] British slang for, nothing more can be done or events have reached a state of completion.

Key Takeaways

What makes lung cancer problematic and hard to detect is that there are rarely any early signs of the disease.  See your GP sooner, not later if you are:

  • Coughing up blood.
  • Coughing all the time.
  • Being breathless all the time (for no reason).
  • In pain when breathing or coughing.