Smoking Unit

What is the Smoking Unit?

The World Health Organization (WHO) considers tobacco to be an addiction that causes physical damage and is a major public health issue. For this reason, many doctors, primarily pulmonologists, have specialized in smoking treatment in recent years.

This unit focuses on the prevention of smoking habits and provides antismoking treatment to individuals with a strong addiction who cannot quit on their own.

What does the Smoking Cessation Unit study?

The smoking unit is dedicated to studying the effects of this addiction on individuals' health, establishing effective protocols to help smokers quit, and informing the population about the benefits of quitting smoking.

The components of cigarettes are harmful to all organs of the body, but some are even more detrimental to certain areas. Therefore, tobacco research is more intensive in certain fields, such as:

• Tobacco and lungs: the components of cigarettes inflame and damage the lungs, facilitating the development of conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
• Tobacco and brain: smokers are at an increased risk of suffering from cerebrovascular disease, with the risk significantly increasing after age 55. After the first few years of not smoking, the risk decreases markedly and becomes equal to that of individuals who have never smoked after a decade.
• Tobacco and heart: nicotine, carbon monoxide, and oxidizing substances in cigarettes cause cardiovascular diseases by increasing heart rate, reducing blood vessel thickness, lowering the blood's oxygen-carrying capacity, and damaging the tissue that lines veins and arteries.
• Tobacco and cancer: in addition to certain genetic disorders, the development of tumors is linked to environmental factors such as diet and tobacco, with tobacco being the most significant. Smoking is particularly associated with lung cancer, laryngeal cancer, oral cavity cancer, digestive system cancers, kidney cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, and acute myeloid leukemia.

Who is it aimed at?

The smoking cessation unit is designed for individuals addicted to tobacco who wish to quit smoking permanently by following a doctor's recommendations. It also plays an informative and preventive role to prevent the habit from forming, particularly among teenagers and young adults.

Techniques, procedures, and diagnostic methods

The specialists in the smoking unit believe that the best way to quit smoking permanently, without excessive withdrawal symptoms, is by combining pharmacological treatment with cognitive-behavioral therapy sessions:

• Antismoking medications: depending on the level of addiction and the smoker’s characteristics, pulmonologists prescribe nicotine patches or gum with small doses of nicotine, antidepressant medications, or blockers of nicotine effects.
• Psychological treatment: cognitive-behavioral therapy provides addicts with the necessary tools to identify the thoughts and external factors that drive them to continue smoking and to find ways to modify them.