Smoking

It’s common knowledge that smoking is harmful to your health in so many different ways. Smoking is the biggest cause of preventable deaths and one in two smokers will die from a smoking-related disease.

How smoking increases diabetes risk

It has been established that there is a clear link between smoking and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Nicotine is one of the many chemicals that are found in cigarettes and is what makes smoking so addictive. When you smoke, nicotine changes the chemical processes in the cells inside your body, so they do not respond to insulin. This is known as insulin resistance.

Insulin is the hormone that allows your body to turn the sugar from the food we eat into energy. Insulin stops your blood glucose level from getting too high by pushing the sugar into the body’s cells. If your body starts to become resistant to insulin, then your blood glucose levels will rise and put you at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Reducing your diabetes risk

Stopping smoking before you develop serious diseases such as type 2 diabetes is extremely important for your health in the future. The sooner you stop smoking, the more time you give your body to heal itself. Research studies have shown that insulin becomes more effective at lowering your blood glucose levels after only 8 weeks of quitting smoking.

Health benefits

The health benefits of stopping smoking are huge and immediate:

What support is available to help me quit?

The good news is that there is a lot of support available to help you stop smoking. The first stop for many is their GP or healthcare professional. They can signpost you to local programmes that are free to attend and are staffed by expert advisers that will help find the best method to quit.

Sometimes this might be a group support session or a one-to-one meeting with a smoking advisor. Overall you are 4 times more likely to stop smoking for good if you engage with an NHS Stop Smoking Service that can offer a mixture of different treatments. To find what Stop Smoking Services are available in your area, put your postcode into the finder on the NHS Smokefree website.

We live now in a digital age and there are many digital tools that you can use to help you quit. Have a look at the NHS Smokefree website which has lots of information and you can design your own personal plan. They also have their own Smokefree app which is available to download for free on both the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Tips to help you quit

Making the decision to quit is the first big step. We’ve put together some tips below to help you on your journey to being smoke-free:

Set a date: 

• Setting a date gives you time to prepare and increases your chance of successfully quitting.
• Try to choose a date that avoids situations where you would be tempted to smoke, such as at the pub or other places where people around you would be smoking.
• Setting a date in advance gives you time to get rid of any cigarettes, lighters or matches and to engage with Stop Smoking Services to support you when you quit.

Remember why you are quitting: 

• Reminding yourself why you want to quit helps you to stay motivated.
• Writing these reasons down and looking at them every time you feel like smoking can be a great tool to help you resist the craving.

Stop Smoking Services: 

• Engage with your local Stop Smoking Services so that they can help work out the best plan for you.
• If you’d prefer to do it yourself, then the Smokefree app is great to give you mobile support, expert advice and a 4-week tailored plan with daily support messages.

Plan for cravings: 

Everyone has their own way of coping, whether that’s nicotine replacing therapy or distracting yourself by staying busy. It’s good to think about this before you stop so you have a strategy in place to deal with the cravings

How safe are e-cigarettes?

In the UK, there are very strict safety and quality regulations for e-cigarettes. They are not completely risk-free and although the long-term effects are relatively unknown, leading organisations such as Public Health England, the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners, have estimated that they are at least 95% less harmful.

There’s also no evidence so far that smoking e-cigarettes is harmful to others, unlike smoking tobacco where second-hand smoking is very harmful to others health.