Give Up Smoking

An informative look at recent Holistic Fitness News

DR KAPLAN'S WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

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This week the men in white coats confirmed what ex-smokers have known for a long time. There can be some unpleasant side-effects of giving up smoking. And they don't just mean the craving for nicotine. The British Medical Journal's Tobacco Control investigated 174 smokers at one week, two weeks and six weeks after quitting.

They found that the quitters were more likely to have the following symptoms: sore throats, coughing, sneezing and mouth ulcers. In the first week alone after quitting, one third of the ex-smokers had developed three or more of these symptoms. The most surprising of the symptoms were the mouth ulcers. The researchers hypothesized that the ulcers could be due to the loss of the anti-bacterial effect of smoking and the cold symptoms due to a temporary depression of the immune system. (No mention of post-quitting depression in the ex-smoker was mentioned.)

Anyway the good news is that ALL the symptoms went in six weeks. The scientists concluded that smokers should be warned to expect some of these symptoms when giving up.

Perhaps you're one of Britain's 13 million smokers? Perhaps you're even one of the 70% of these who are tired of smoking and want to quit. Why not make sure you quit by 12th March, which is No Smoking Day. The day itself even has a website to help you along. www.nosmokingday.org.uk It's a terrific website with all sorts of tips and advice on how to ease the pain of quitting. If you're an ex-smoker, you can even log onto the site and find ways of helping others quit. Good luck and good health!

Fortunately the 12th of March is not a day generally associated with academic examinations. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin suspect that smokers who wear a nicotine patch during exams do better than those who don't! They came to this opinion by scanning the brains of smokers while they were doing challenging cognitive tasks and found that patch-wearers performed better and found the tests less 'emotionally draining'.

Coffee Drinkers Alert! Alert!

Yes, it had to come. A 'cure' for people who drink too much coffee! Coloured black and shaped like a military missile, 'Ban the Bean' is a herbal spray which claims to decrease the craving for coffee. When you feel like a cup of coffee, you simply spray the inside of your mouth with the 'missile'. And don't worry what passers-by think of you. Just think of the money you will be saving. One 'Ban the Bean' missile retails at just under £20. So when you obviated the need to drink about 10 strong lattes, all the remaining sprays are free. Does it work? Who knows? I'm waiting to hear about a double-blind trial. If they can come up with an anti-coffee spray, what about an anti-chocolate spray? Maybe one day we will all walk around with a small briefcase of sprays to inhibit us from anything unhealthy we fancy. If anyone uses 'Ban the Bean', please let me know how you go!

Homeopathic Tip of the Week

Today's tip is for smokers who are struggling with their nicotine addiction or suffering from some of the symptoms in the article above. Some of you may be chewing away at nicotine gum, in which case you will probably protect yourself to some degree against the side-effects of quitting. But some of you will have decided to go cold turkey and simply quit. You could try a few doses of Nicotine 30c a homeopathic remedy made from truly miniscule amounts of Nicotine. Just take one powder a week for 4 weeks and it may help you along. You will need to order the powders from a homeopathic pharmacy as this is a specialized homeopathic remedy not for sale at most chemists. It is however, available over the counter without prescription and most homeopathic chemists are most obliging and will send you remedies in the post.

Dr Kaplan's personal website is: www.drkaplan.co.uk and his practice website is www.140harleystreet.co.uk and he can be contacted on (020) 7487 3416