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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – If you want a loved one to stop smoking and you feel tempted to nag, you may want to try to extinguish your impulse. You might be doing more harm than good, a Winship Cancer Institute expert says. Reinforce positively and try not to nag, advises Carla Berg, PhD, a member of Winship’s Cancer Prevention and Control program and a professor in the Rollins School of Public Health. And, remember that your role as a loved one to help a non-smoker quit is very important, Berg says.
“In fact, supportive behaviors have been associated with initial smoking cessation, while negative or critical behaviors have been associated with earlier relapse,” says Berg.
This is important to keep in mind especially during Heart Month, Berg says, when many smokers are trying to quit.
“About 17-18 percent of adults in the United States continue to smoke, and we want to do everything we can to help them stop,” Berg says. Smoking is not only is the major cause of lung cancer, the nation’s number one cancer killer, but it also responsible for as many as 30 percent of all coronary heart disease deaths in the United States each year. Smoking is a major risk factor for more than two dozen other cancers, including head and neck cancer, bladder cancer and stomach cancer.
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The Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center (http://www.whsc.emory.edu/home/about) of Emory University is an academic health science and service center focused on missions of teaching, research, health care and public service.
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