Passive smokers can contract respiratory diseases, says lung specialist

Passive or second-hand smokers are 20 per cent to 25 per cent likely to contract cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, Dr. kinglsey Osagie, a lung specialist with the National Hospital Abuja, has warned.
According to the World Health Organisation, second-hand smoke refers to the smoke that are found in restaurants, offices and or other enclosed spaces where people burn tobacco products such as cigarettes, bidis and water pipes.
Osagie told the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Monday that tobacco smoke contained more than 4,000 chemicals of which at least 250 were known to be harmful with more than 50 of them known to cause cancer of the lungs.
The doctor, therefore, said that passive smokers could not be less affected by the cigarette smoke than the smoker himself or herself.
He called on the Federal Government to implement the law against smoking in public places in all states of the federation.
Osagie said: “Passive smokers are not in any way less affected than the smokers themselves.
“So they are also liable to about 25 per cent to 30 per cent to what the smoker are liable to.
“In fact, in some cases, when the husband is smoking, the wife that is not smoking may end up with lung cancer and the hubby smoking is still going and counting year.
“So, it is so important that we control this passive smoking thing and that brings us to the law against smoking in public.
“I think this should be re-examined and properly implemented.
“That law banning smoking in public places should be revisited and properly implemented to save the young people, not too young, the pregnant women, not pregnant woman from the consequences of cigarettes smoking.”
Osagie explained that it was easier to manage smoking in passive smokers than stopping a chronic smoker.
He said: “Once you take the passive smoker away from the offending agent or environment, of course that will stop the person, but for the smokers you need to do something to encourage them to stop smoking.”
According to the doctor, for a smoker to stop the habit, he or she has to be willing to stop it.
He said that a technique, known as 5 A’s, could be used to stop smoking.
Osagie said: “In dealing with smoking cessation, we recognise the five A’s.
“You ask the patient: do you really want to stop smoking and of course if the patient agrees with you that okay I want to stop smoking, you must be able to extract a probable date of stopping how to smoke.
“You must Access the number of cigarettes he smokes.
Then you also Assist him to carry out this decision and there is the need for you to Arrange how you will follow up the patient diligently to make sure this decision he has taken is brought to fruition.”
Osagie added that drug interventions were also introduced to help the person deal with withdrawal symptoms, saying that in three months, the person could resume smoking.
He said such drugs, which are readily available across the counter, included nicotine gum, patch and inhalers.
The doctor, however, warned that before the drugs were administered, the patient would have to be tested and certified to be healthy enough to use them.
Osagie said that family support was also important to help a person quit smoking.
He said: “Research still shows that we have a lot to do because even if you do all this in the best case scenario, maybe about 25 per cent to 30 per cent of those that present themselves for smoking cessation, will be successful but we do not give up.
“If you do, it you can repeat the cycle again.
So you can start all over again: ask the patient, assess the patient, assist the patient and all that we said, the 5 As, and of course encourage the person to take the drugs.
“So maybe as we begin to go through this cycle again until we start getting success.
“Of course it comes in trickles, but the most important thing is address factors that make people to start smoking.”
Osagie said that research showed that anytime a person stopped smoking, there were benefits because the person would eventually gravitate towards normalcy.
He said: “When women stop smoking, they will have healthier babies who are not underweight or have congenital abnormalities.
“My advice is that smokers should stop smoking because the benefits accrue to the individual at any point in time.”
NAN reports that May 31 is marked globally as World No Tobacco Day and with the theme: “Ban Tobacco Advertising, Promotion & Sponsorship.”