When it comes to smoking, women not only have more health risks, but they also have a harder time kicking the habit, researchers report.One reason may be that husbands may not provide effective support for wives who are trying to quit, according to Kenneth A. Perkins, M.D.
Perkins is a psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He reviewed a large number of research studies on smoking cessation, and he summarized what he found. These are some of the science-based discoveries he found in the literature:
- Women have less success with nicotine replacement therapy — chewing gum or patches — than men do, a finding that Perkins called “intriguing.”
- On the other hand, antidepression medication may be more help for women trying to stay tobacco-free than for men, because negative moods are more likely to precipitate a relapse for women.
- Women smokers are more fearful than men of gaining weight if they quit.
- Medications to aid smoking cessation are not currently recommended for pregnant women.
- The menstrual cycle affects tobacco withdrawal symptoms, and responses to anti-smoking drugs may vary with the phases of the cycle.
- Women may be more susceptible than men to environmental cues for smoking, such as smoking with specific friends or when in certain moods.
- Many women may enjoy the feeling of control associated with smoking a cigarette.Perkins concluded that if smoking cessation programs addressed the gender-specific concerns of women smokers, they would have greater success.
The director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Alan I. Leshner, M.D., noted that women now account for 39 percent of all smoking-related diseases, an enormous increase over the percentage of 20 to 30 years ago. “Given the greater relative risk of women to incur smoking-related diseases,” Leshner said, “it is clear that we must find better approaches to help women break their nicotine addiction.”
Both men and women who smoke are up to 20 times more likely to develop lung cancer, 10 times more likely to develop obstructive pulmonary disease, and twice as likely to develop heart disease and cancers of the bladder, stomach and pancreas.Women who smoke, however, run a greater risk than men for heart attacks and stroke, and the risk is greater still if they use oral contraceptives. Some studies have found they have twice the rate of lung cancer that male smokers do.
There is some evidence that breast cancer risk increases for women who smoke. Women smokers may have greater menstrual bleeding and greater variability in their periods. They also have more difficulty in becoming pregnant, and reach menopause on average a year or two sooner than women who do not smoke.
Researchers also say most of the health risks from smoking are reduced or eventually eliminated when you successfully kick the habit.
