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American Morning
Quit Fix
Aired May 30, 2003 - 08:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: There is good news for anyone trying to kick the smoking habit this morning. A new study says that if smokers quit, some of the lung damage they've suffered can be reversed.
Dr. Gupta is off today, so medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is at the CNN Center now with details on this.
Good morning, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi.
Heidi, some smokers, especially older ones, say why should I quit quit? The damage has already been done. But this study shows that does not appear to be true, you can regain some of your lung function back. This is about gaining lung function back. What this the doctors did is look at subjects who had lost 25 percent of their lung function. In other words, they couldn't breathe as deeply and as easily as they had before smoking. And they found after they quit, the subjects regained some function after quitting. Now they didn't regain all of their function. In fact, they didn't regain a whole lot of function, but they did regain enough that they could feel it, they felt better. This is important again, because some people think that, well, gee, why should I quit smoking. But here it shows you can regain some of your functioning -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Pretty encouraging news. Also, I know there is a difference, at least a little bit of a difference, between men and women on this, right?
COHEN: That's right, there was a little bit of a difference. I think that that surprised some people, when I asked the smoking expert, why would women be able to regain more function than men? He said, well, women have smaller lungs, and so the smoke gets more condensed within the lungs, and so when they quit, the improvement is even more marked, because that smoke had been so condensed. So again, women regained more function than men. But men also did regain some function.
COLLINS: Another study out there, too, we should probably talk about, about the damage that smoking can do to your brain.
COHEN: That's right. We all know about the damage that smoking can do to your lungs. Here's a study, a preliminary study, that says when people smoke, they lost some of their memory. What they did is they took smokers, and they took nonsmokers and gave them sort of memory games to play, and what found that the smokers were not as good at the memory games. One of the theory as to why that would be true is smoking can deprive your brain of oxygen, and so perhaps your brain doesn't function well enough. Again, this is a preliminary study, but if lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease weren't enough to get you to quit, maybe this would get you to quit -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right, very good. Elizabeth Cohen, with some interesting studies for us this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired May 30, 2003 - 08:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: There is good news for anyone trying to kick the smoking habit this morning. A new study says that if smokers quit, some of the lung damage they've suffered can be reversed.
Dr. Gupta is off today, so medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is at the CNN Center now with details on this.
Good morning, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Heidi.
Heidi, some smokers, especially older ones, say why should I quit quit? The damage has already been done. But this study shows that does not appear to be true, you can regain some of your lung function back. This is about gaining lung function back. What this the doctors did is look at subjects who had lost 25 percent of their lung function. In other words, they couldn't breathe as deeply and as easily as they had before smoking. And they found after they quit, the subjects regained some function after quitting. Now they didn't regain all of their function. In fact, they didn't regain a whole lot of function, but they did regain enough that they could feel it, they felt better. This is important again, because some people think that, well, gee, why should I quit smoking. But here it shows you can regain some of your functioning -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Pretty encouraging news. Also, I know there is a difference, at least a little bit of a difference, between men and women on this, right?
COHEN: That's right, there was a little bit of a difference. I think that that surprised some people, when I asked the smoking expert, why would women be able to regain more function than men? He said, well, women have smaller lungs, and so the smoke gets more condensed within the lungs, and so when they quit, the improvement is even more marked, because that smoke had been so condensed. So again, women regained more function than men. But men also did regain some function.
COLLINS: Another study out there, too, we should probably talk about, about the damage that smoking can do to your brain.
COHEN: That's right. We all know about the damage that smoking can do to your lungs. Here's a study, a preliminary study, that says when people smoke, they lost some of their memory. What they did is they took smokers, and they took nonsmokers and gave them sort of memory games to play, and what found that the smokers were not as good at the memory games. One of the theory as to why that would be true is smoking can deprive your brain of oxygen, and so perhaps your brain doesn't function well enough. Again, this is a preliminary study, but if lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease weren't enough to get you to quit, maybe this would get you to quit -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right, very good. Elizabeth Cohen, with some interesting studies for us this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
