Stop Smoking For Thyroid Health!

Smoking is not healthy and quitting is good for you. However, stopping smoking can be challenging due to the nicotine cravings as well as a transition for your body. Managing the chronic side effects of smoking as you quit, and understanding wide reaching unintended consequences of quitting smoking will help your transition be as healthy as possible.

• You want to quit in a manner that quitting will last, meeting with your Primary Care Provider to make that quitting plan is giving you the best chance of success.
• Danish researchers have just discovered that there is something about quitting smoking that raises your risk for being diagnosed with a under-active thyroid known as being hypothyroid. Symptoms alone may not determine whether this is happening to you and it may be you will need thyroid function tests, tests of thyroid antibodies, and ultrasound exam of your thyroid may be necessary to uncover these issues.
• Metabolic changes occur when you wean off of tobacco, so that weight gain if not put on a diet at the same time as quitting smoking is very common.Increasing exercise can combat this as well.
• The smoking we are discussing refers to tobacco but the cardiovascular risk associated with marijuana use “may be greater than the cardiovascular risk already established for cigarette smoking,” report the authors, led by Barbara Yankey (Georgia State University, Atlanta). They acknowledged, “We are not disputing the possible medicinal benefits of standardized cannabis formulations; however, recreational use of marijuana should be approached with caution.” The study was published online August 8, 2017 .
• Underactive thyroid and smoking make you more susceptible to poor immune function which can make virtually all diseases worse including COVID-19 should you contract it.
• Smoking is harmful to your eye health, and former smokers as well as current smokers should use topical antioxidatants that are used to help prevent sun damage can help your eyes and enhance the effect of sun screen. So next time you grab for your shades, grab your sunscreen as well.
• Smoking causes vaginal and bladder medical tissues. To restore health to these tissues consider the non-invasive treatment of MonaLisa Touch to repair the vaginal tissue damage that smoking and the chronic vaginal strain of coughing has cause.
• Infertility is present in about 10% of couples. If you want a baby, both of you need to put out the cigarettes. Quitting smoking will double the rate of fertility. Sperm counts and parameters in the semen analysis are worse, but no studies actually have proven male infertility due to smoking. But for those with borderline counts, the evidence seems clear enough to at least stop smoking while trying to conceive. Studies of individual genes within sperm have also shown that smoking can cause individual gene damage in sperm. Perhaps getting sperm testing before you try for pregnancy is indicated.
• Once you have quit smoking, and you have a positive pregnancy test, you may want to see your obstetrician early. Once a woman is pregnant, smoking increases the chance of early miscarriage. And smokers have 20 times the risk of having a tubal pregnancy than non-smokers.
• We have known for a long time that smokers go through an earlier menopause due to earlier depletion of all their viable eggs. This translates in to a 1-4 year earlier menopause, and an earlier perimenopause as well.