It is widely known that smoking is bad for you. The large number of chemicals in each cigarette damage not only the lungs but also other body organs. This means smoking increases your risk of many health problems such as heart disease, stroke, lung disease and many cancers.
Just as importantly, smoking makes recovery from cancer treatments more difficult and increases your risk of complications. This means now is the time to try quitting if you are able. Even stopping smoking for a short period can improve your health, so it is never too late to stop.
Vaping has become a popular alternative to smoking. As vaping is relatively new, there is less evidence about how vaping affects the body compared to smoking. There are fewer harmful chemicals when you vape compared to smoking, however they are still present. Therefore, vaping is probably better than smoking, but is still harmful to your health and may worsen your outcome after treatment for cancer. So if you can, please consider cutting down or better still quitting.
Quitting smoking is difficult but there are many resources available to help
Resources
Most Pharmacies and GP Practices deliver stopping smoking services. It might be worth contacting your local GP Practice or Pharmacy to see what they can offer. This is a link to the NHS website that can help you find your local stopping-smoking service.
Find Your Local Stop Smoking Service (LSSS) – Better Health – NHS (www.nhs.uk)
Quit smoking – Better Heath – NHS (www.nhs.uk)
Health matters: stopping smoking – what works? – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)