We’ve all heard the main and obvious reasons to quit smoking. Heart disease and cancer are two of the biggest killers of people in our time and two of the most preventable as well. World Health Organization studies indicate that if left unchecked, smoking could easily wipe out more than a billion people in this century. If the Titanic sank with all hands every 24 minutes for the next 100 years, that would be close to the number of deaths from smoking.

Three quarters of smokers today are trying to kick the habit which is up 32 percent from twenty years ago. The reasons for quitting have only gotten more prevalent as health issues have connected cigarette smoking to everything from diabetes to blindness and everything in between. It’s not just about heart disease, stroke and cancer anymore. Now, the health issues associated with smoking can even harm your children and those around you. Here are a few other quality of life issues associated with smoking that you may not know about.

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It is hard to believe that it has been over a year since the tragic loss of one of the scariest “Jokers” in “Batman” history. One of the first Jokers, Jack Nicholson, warned Heath Ledger about the emotional drain the part of the “Joker” can put on an actor. It wasn’t until audiences flocked to the box office to see the new Batman movie that they realized just how serious Ledger took on the role.

“His voice sent shivers through my bones,” an audience member was quoted as saying after seeing the Batman thriller. There are very few actors that can transform a role like Ledger did in The Dark Knight and his films live on in the hearts of audiences around the world. He took on a powerful role as a gay cowboy in “Brokeback Mountain” in which he kissed Jake Gyllehnaal and won an Oscar for his performance.

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The headline “suicide” probably jumped out at you like a red flag in front of a mad bull. Suicide is nothing to take lightly, and it certainly isn’t in this case here. Chantix, an anti-smoking drug created by the pharmaceutical mega-giant Pfizer, has been linked to cases of depression, psychiatric problems and even suicide. Maybe you have never heard of the drug, but you probably know someone in your life who is a smoker. If they have ever thought of quitting, pass this vital information along to them.

What is Chantix?

According to drugs.com, Chantix “is used as a smoking cessation medicine or treatment. It is used together with behavior modification and counseling support to help you stop smoking cigarettes. Chantix works in the brain to block the pleasurable effects of smoking. This helps to decrease your desire to keep smoking.” That right there might be a warning sign for some: “works in the brain.” Taking a drug like this is no lighthearted undertaking; it literally affects the way your mind thinks and feels about smoking, and obviously other things in your life as well, and as you will see below, has had disastrous side effects.

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photo credit: Daquella manera

Outbreaks of resurging or new infectious diseases – many from foreign countries – kill more than 170,000 people in America each year. That’s a pretty scary statistic. Newly discovered global pandemics or even bio-terrorist attacks, are a real threat to the security of the nation. How would you be prepared for such a medical catastrophe should it happen? What would you do to protect your family in the case of a bio-terrorist attack? These are questions that our parents and grandparents didn’t have to deal with. It’s only in the past decade or so that these outbreaks have become a viable threat to our life.

Even the Plague Can Happen Here

Something as medieval as the plague can happen again. There have been recent outbreaks of pneumonic plague even in the United States. While the cases were diagnosed and quickly treated, there’s no way of predicting what would happen if it occurred in another country where the medical treatments couldn’t handle the problem quickly enough. The disease would spread at a phenomenal rate and eventually end up on our shore. Pneumonic plague is usually fatal in 65% of cases – even with proper medical treatment. Epidemics such as influenza, HIV, West Nile virus and SARS have become real medical threats in the past few years, with varying success of treating and slowing the spread of the diseases.

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