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Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
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Quitting Smoking Before Surgery Prevents Complications [08/06-1]
Excerpts from: People who quit smoking before surgery have fewer complications
Irish
Times [08/06/03]
In a study of the effects of smoking cessation and surgery, Dr Ann Moller, a
consultant anaesthetist at the Herber University Hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark,
looked at 166 smokers who were waiting at least eight weeks for either hip or
knee surgery.
She and her colleagues divided the participants into two groups, one of whom received intensive smoking cessation counselling and an offer of free nicotine replacement therapy.
When reassessed after surgery, the group of people who were encouraged to give up smoking before joint replacement had significantly fewer complications from the surgical procedure. In particular, the incidence of wound-related complication was much reduced in these patients. They also spent less time in the intensive care unit post-operatively.
Prof Andy Parrott, of the University of East London, gave a paper which challenged the conventional thinking that smoking helps relieve stress and depression. He described research which looked at what happened when adolescents take up smoking."Within one year they exhibit high levels of stress and depression. And young people who become heavy smokers show higher levels of anxiety and panic attacks five years later compared to their peers who don't smoke," he said.
Emphasising that no prospective research has found that taking up smoking leads to psychological gain, Prof Parrott said all the evidence pointed in the opposite direction.
Nicotine dependency affected mood, "with normal mood while smoking being replaced by a drop in mood between smoking episodes". The worldwide costs of increased stress and depression linked to smoking could amount to billions of dollars a year.
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