Letter Addressing Modifiable Risk Factors

Letter Addressing Modifiable Risk Factors

Dear

First of all, I just wanted to say that I love you. It is out of this love I have for you that I must address some major concerns I have with your horrible habit of smoking. There are so many consequences for this bad habit, I don't even really understand how you could continue…but I wanted to write this letter to you just to remind you the dangers you face if you continue unabated.

Yes, there are some more superficial issues related to smoking. I know first hand the smell that covers everything, because I have had to live with you for so long. Smoking can stain your teeth and cover everything you have with that awful stench. Even worse, smoking can lead to the narrowing of the blood vessels, which has been shown by the research to cause a number of different types of vascular diseases, which are "obstructions of the large arteries in the arms and legs that can cause a range of problems from pain to tissue loss or gangrene," (CDC 2012). Not to mention your smoking can harm me through second hand smoke!

Yes, yellowing teeth and a bad stench can be a nuisance, but smoking also causes much more serious problems. It has been related to over 443,000 deaths annually in the United States alone (CDC 2012). Smoking tobacco is the number one killer in the United States. In fact, "more deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by al deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined" (CDC 2012). The bad habit leads to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans each year, and much more than that on a global scale. According to the research, "It is also the single most preventable cause of death in the U.S." (Jacobs 1997). This is clearly unacceptable behavior, and so I really want to drive home what could happen to you if you continued to smoke.

There are so many cancers associated with smoking. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has shown that men with your bad habit are 23 times more likely to develop lung cancer compared to nonsmokers (CDC 2012). Even though the chances are a little less for woman, it doesn't matter because you have a 23 times greater chance of developing lung cancer than me! Each year, over 143,000 smokers will perish from a variety of different types of cancers (Jacobs 1997). These cancers are often not a quick and painless death. Rather, they can kill you slowly, and with a lot of pain and misery. Fighting against such cancers often requires invasive techniques, like surgery and chemotherapy -- neither of which are fun to deal with! The main issue I have here is not the small nuisances or the fact that I am against smoking, but the very fact that it is so sure to cause death prematurely!

There are also a number of serious conditions associated with smoking beyond the various types of cancers it can cause to attack the human body. Heart disease and stroke are also major conditions commonly associated with the bad habit of smoking. The research shows that your chances of heart disease or stroke can double when compared to nonsmokers' chances. Heart disease is one of the most common conditions smokers face. It is a serious condition which can strike at any time, and leave you completely helpless, or worse off dead. Moreover, smoking is a major cause of respiratory diseases, like emphysema, which is "a lung disease that has no cure" (Jacobs 1997). Such respiratory diseases can severely restrict the quality of life for those suffering through them. They force patients to have to stop a number of activities they love, because they no longer have the lung capacity to continue doing them. According to the research, "a person with this disease has difficulty breathing because the walls of the small air sacs in the lungs are being destroyed," destroyed (Jacobs 1997)! Can you really see yourself living through this type of pain?