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May is Asthma Awareness Month!

Press play below to learn about how air quality effects children with Asthma.

Audio transcript

Spring is here and summer is fast approaching. One topic people may not associate with this time of year is asthma. New Hampshire’s Public Health Director Dr. José Montero joins WMUR-TV for their “Monthly Checkup” to share some important information about asthma management. Watch the video here: Summer Brings Increase in Asthma from WMUR New Hampshire.

Asthma can start at any age. Although there is no cure for asthma, it can be managed so people with the disease can live a normal, healthy life. If you or someone you know has asthma and would like to learn more about it, the American Lung Association invites you to participate in their new online learning module, Asthma Basics.

If you or someone you know has a child with asthma, Lungtropolis is a website parents and children can visit together where you’ll find advise for parents with children with asthma as well as action-packed games designed to help kids ages five to ten control their asthma.

You can also visit:
New England Chapter of Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America
Breathe New Hampshire

Watch this video on Asthma Tips from the CDC

Tips from Former Smokers

Tips from Former Smokers” campaign features compelling stories of former smokers living with smoking-related diseases and disabilities. The ads focus on smoking-related lung and throat cancer, heart attack, stroke, Buerger’s disease, and asthma. Smokers who quit also pass along tips about what helped them succeed.

Though they may be tough to watch, the ads show real people living with real, painful consequences from smoking,” said CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “There is sound evidence that supports the use of these types of hard-hitting images and messages to encourage smokers to quit, to keep children from ever beginning to smoke, and to drastically reduce the harm caused by tobacco.

Watch more videos here

Visit the CDC website to read the stories and learn more.

Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults

Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable and premature death, killing more than 1,200 Americans every day. For every tobacco-related death two new young people under the age of 26 become regular smokers. Nearly 90 percent of these replacement smokers try their first cigarette by age 18. Approximately 3 out of 4 high school smokers continue to smoke well into adulthood.

“Targeted marketing encourages more young people to take up this deadly addiction every day,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “This administration is committed to doing everything we can to prevent our children from using tobacco.”

The surgeon general’s report provides further scientific evidence on the addictive nature of nicotine. The younger individuals are when they start using tobacco, the more likely they are to become addicted and the more heavily addicted they will become.

For more information visit, www.surgeongeneral.gov

Tobacco Industry Watch: Deadly Alliance

Key findings of the report Convenience stores and other retail outlets have become by far the dominant channel for marketing tobacco products in the United States Point-of-sale marketing is very effective at reaching kids and influencing them to smoke.

Tobacco companies, inhibited by their own negative reputations, have enlisted convenience stores as front groups to oppose tobacco tax increases and other policies to reduce tobacco use. For more information about the Report, visit Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids

For information about what you can do, visit www.countertobacco.org, a resource for local, state, and federal organizations working to counteract tobacco product sales and marketing at the point of sale.

Smoking and Heart Health

If you smoke, cells that line your body’s blood vessels react to the poisons in tobacco smoke almost immediately. Your heart rate and blood pressure go up. Your blood vessels grow narrower. Chemical changes caused by smoking also make blood more likely to clot. Clots can form and block blood flow to your heart.

Smoking is one cause of dangerous plaque buildup inside your arteries. Plaque clogs and narrows your arteries. This can trigger chest pain, weakness, heart attack, or stroke. Plaque can rupture and cause clots that block arteries. Completely blocked arteries can cause sudden death. Smoking is not the only cause of these problems, but it makes them much worse.

Quitting smoking now is the best way to protect your heart or the heart of the people you love who may be near you when you smoke. Call the NH Tobacco Helpline to begin loving your heart today.

Visit the CDC website to learn more

Quitting Tobacco for the New Year

Setting a Quit Date is one of the most important steps leading up to a successful quit. If you are thinking of quitting smoking or chew as one of your New Year’s Resolutions, you are not alone—many Granite Staters will be getting ready to quit right along side you.

Call the NH Tobacco Helpline today to begin making your Personalized Quit Plan. Help is Free and Confidental. See what the Next Steps are to planning your quit here.

Between 22% and 25% of NH residents who have used the NH Tobacco Helpline to quit are currently NOT smoking at all! Congratulations to them!

(National successful quit rates are about 6%. The average person makes 7-10, or more quit attempts before being completely quit—it’s all part of the process of quitting smoking and learning new behavior.)

Your year to QUIT!

As the New Year begins, resolve to make 2012 the year that you quit smoking.
Help is available to help you quit for good this year.
Learn more on the CDC website»

Send a Health e-card to someone you care about.

This animated e-card encourages smokers to make a New Year’s resolution to quit. Click here to visit the CDC website and see and send the card.

November is COPD Awareness month

Every cigarette is doing you damage, which can lead to lung disease, cancer, heart disease and many other conditions.
The single most important way to prevent COPD and other fatal diseases is to stop smoking.

Quitting may not always be easy, but it will benefit your health and your wealth.
Free Stop Smoking Service support can make it easier to stop successfully and is available where you live to help you
make this quit attempt the one that works. Call the NH Tobacco Helpline or click here to have a counselor call you
back.

Rocker STING has teamed up with health officials to promote a new anti-smoking campaign.

The Roxanne hitmaker is backing the Every Breath initiative by Fresh and the British Lung Foundation, and has offered up his hit track Every Breath You Take as the promo’s soundtrack. The campaign aims to highlight the long-term effects of smoking, and Sting says, “Many people across the U.K. are affected by lung damage and other smoking related illnesses, particularly in the North East where I grew up.” visit Fresh to see the campaign.

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act

The DPHS, Tobacco Prevention & Control Program (TPCP) is launching a media campaign to connect NH tobacco users with text message support that provides counseling and encouragement for quitting tobacco use.

Visit the FDA website to learn more »

DIVISION OF PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICES (DPHS) LAUNCHES STATEWIDE MOBILE CAMPAIGN TO GEAR UP FOR KICK BUTTS DAY 2011

The DPHS, Tobacco Prevention & Control Program (TPCP) is launching a media campaign to connect NH tobacco users with text message support that provides counseling and encouragement for quitting tobacco use.

DPHS currently offers free counseling and nicotine replacement patches (NRT) to residents who call 1-800-QUIT-NOW or self-refer via the web to the NH Tobacco Helpline (www.TryToStopNH.org). NH residents will now have additional support right at their fingertips with the first-ever statewide mobile campaign aimed to help NH tobacco users quit for good. Beginning this March, participants who text “CALLME” to 22122, will receive a call back from a certified tobacco treatment specialist at the NH Tobacco Helpline, free cessation advice and counseling and can request to qualify for free NRT.

March 23rd is National Kick Butts Day, organized by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids – a day when thousands of youth in every state and around the world will stand out, speak up and seize control against big tobacco. NH DPHS wants to be ready to help those residents who may be motivated to make a quit attempt on this day. Additionally, in June, participants will be able to sign up for a NH Quit Tips via text or online. Tips will be sent to the registrants’ mobile phone at the times when they have identified they have the strongest cravings for nicotine. The text messages will provide some of the “quit tips” that one would get from a counselor at the Helpline or at 1-800-GET-A-TIP (the Helpline’s daily recorded quit tips line).

“The NH Tobacco Helpline has proven to be an effective tool in helping NH residents quit tobacco use,” said Dr. José Montero, Director of DPHS. “New technologies allow us to give people a chance to see the kind of sound advice the Helpline offers through a simple process—texting.”

Thousands of services have been provided to NH residents who have called the Helpline at 1-800-QUIT-NOW (1-800-784-8669) for support in navigating the rough waters of smoking cessation. Now, the helpful tips of a Helpline counselor can remind texters that quitting smoking is possible and offer up advice that is tailored according to the texter’s responses to a few questions. Texting has become a central form of communication, especially for young adults, and people who may be reluctant to call the helpline may be willing to opt in for the text messages.

Bus advertisements, mailers and radio spots to promote NH Tobacco Helpline’s text campaign will begin appearing statewide. For more information about the NH Tobacco Helpline, please visit www.TryToStopNH.org or call 1-800-QUIT-NOW (1-800-784-866). For more information about the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids or Kick Butts Day, visit www.kickbuttsday.org.

Cigarette Smoke Damages Every Organ in the Body
Damage to body is immediate when you smoke

On December 9, 2010, the Surgeon General released How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease: The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease: A Report of the Surgeon General.

This report explains in detail how tobacco smoke causes disease. It describes the ways tobacco smoke damages every organ in the body and causes disease and death.

Key Findings from the Report

The scientific evidence reviewed in the 2010 Surgeon General’s report supports the following:

• There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke.
• Inhaling the complex chemical mixture in tobacco smoke causes immediate damage to the body and leads to seriously bad health outcomes: cancer, heart disease, and lung disease.
• The risk and severity of the many bad health outcomes caused by smoking are directly related to the time and amount of exposure to tobacco smoke.
• Tobacco products are powerfully addicting and can lead to long-term smoking.
• Even low levels of exposure to smoke, including exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke, can trigger heart attacks and asthma attacks.
• There is not enough evidence to support the claim that by changing to the design or content of cigarettes one could reduce the risk of these bad health outcomes.

Learn more about the report by visiting the CDC website.

Order your own copy of the report here