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TUESDAY, Nov. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Mistaken beliefs -- most often about nicotine -- often hurt smokers who are trying to give up the habit.
That was the underlying message of a presentation by smoking-cessation expert Virginia Reichert, director of the Center for Tobacco Control at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, N.Y. She made her remarks Tuesday at the American College of Chest Physicians meeting in Montreal.
For example, many smokers are reluctant to use nicotine patches or gum because they think nicotine causes cancer, Reichert said.
A study of over 1,100 middle-aged smokers who enrolled in the center's program found that nicotine-cancer misconception much more common among women, with 72 percent of them believing it, compared to 60 percent of men, Reichert said. And the same percentage of women smoke "light" cigarettes, mistakenly believing them to be less harmful, compared to 63 percent of the men, she said.
Nicotine is dangerous, but not for any link to cancer, which does not exist, Reichert said. It does its damage by addicting people to tobacco, "and when you're smoking you're inhaling 4,000 chemicals a day," she said. Many of those chemicals are carcinogenic.
"Nicotine is the most addictive chemical we know, more addictive than heroin or cocaine," and too many physicians who try to help smokers underestimate that addictive power, Reichert said. "You've got to do more than give them a brochure and walk away."
The data on misinformation came from a six-week program involving heavy smokers in their mid-40s, averaging a pack and a half a day, she said. At the start of the program, participants filled out a questionnaire to gauge their knowledge and beliefs about smoking.
Women were more likely than men to worry about smoking giving them cancer -- 75 percent versus 64 percent. They were also more likely than men to worry that quitting would cause them to gain weight -- 41 percent vs. 15 percent -- and to worry about being able to handle stress without cigarettes -- 63 percent to 55 percent.
With a program that includes medical management, behavior modification, use of nicotine patches and/or gum and diet, "most smokers who quit can expect to avoid withdrawal symptoms and minimize weight gain," Reichert said.
The program was equally successful for men and women, with a quit rate of 59 percent for women and 55 percent for men, she said.
A major reason for that success is the ability to wean smokers away from getting nicotine from tobacco, Reichert said. Patches, gums and even nicotine inhalers can still supply "the drug they are addicted to in small amounts," she said.
The amounts should be small because nicotine does pose dangers, said Dr. Diane Stover, director of the pulmonary service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. It constricts blood vessels and promotes formation of blood clots that can lead to heart attacks and other major cardiovascular problems, she said. Still, nicotine replacement "is a bridge to stop smoking, and then you take away the nicotine," Stover said.
Despite all the evidence about the ill effects of smoking, it is still necessary to spell them out for many people, Stover said. "When you talk to people about the dangers of smoking, they'll say, 'I knew it was not healthy to smoke, but I really didn't know why,' " she said.
Another report at the meeting provided new information about one of the leading problems of smoking -- lung cancer. It gave some comfort to women, finding that they survive longer than men with the disease, even without treatment.
Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City reviewed nearly 19,000 cases of lung cancer and found that women not only had significantly better survival rates than men when treated, they also had a 21 percent decreased risk of death compared to men without treatment.
The study "suggests that the progression of lung cancer has a biological basis, with the disease being more aggressive in men than women," the researchers said.
More information
Smokers who want help in quitting can get it from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov ).
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