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True: Smoking initiation at a young age greatly increases the risk of severe nicotine addiction and also greatly increases the risk of smoking related diseases and death. For example, the risk for developing lung cancer for a person who began smoking regularly at age thirteen is 350% higher than that for one who started smoking at age twenty-three. Studies have also shown that smoking in teen years is more addictive and that smokers who begin young are less likely to break the habit.
14. A 20-year term life insurance policy for a teenage smoker is more than twice as expensive as the same policy for a teenage nonsmoker.
True: This means that the life insurance company is betting (based on highly accurate survival statistics) that a teenage non-smoker is more than twice as likely as a teenage smoker to be alive after twenty years! (Source: lifequote.com website)
15. Only the elderly get heart disease, cancer and respiratory illnesses from smoking.
False: Heart disease and cancer can sometimes appear in the twenties as a result of smoking and respiratory illness commonly starts even earlier. In the Video, Jay Taylor, by age nineteen, already had the lungs of a non-smoking 66-year-old man as measured by Pulmonary Function Testing of his small airways. Mr. Calvin Dorsett developed throat cancer by thirty-two years of age. It's also known from autopsy studies that smokers in their twenties develop early hardening of their coronary arteries, the arteries that supply the heart.
16. Quitting smoking only has long-term benefits.
False: According to the American Cancer Society:
Within 20 minutes of quitting: blood pressure and pulse rate become
normal.
Within 8 hours: smoker's breath will disappear, carbon monoxide
levels in blood drops and oxygen levels rise to normal.
Within 48 hours: the ability to taste and smell improves.
Within 3 days: breathing is easier.
Within 2-3 months: circulation is improved, walking becomes easier
and lung capacity increases up to 30%.
Within 1-9 months: energy increases, sinus congestion and shortness
of breath decrease.
Within 1-10 years: risk of mouth, throat and lung cancer, heart
disease and stroke progressively decrease.
Overall, after 10-15 years of quitting: a previous smokers' risk
of premature death approaches that of a person who never smoked.
Stopping tobacco use has short and long term health benefits for people
of all ages.
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