100 NCC Cadets Take Oath To Not To Smoke

By 1 2 1 News Reporter

Chandigarh 30^th May:-- To mark World No Tobacco Day, Max Super Speciality Hospital Mohali held an awareness program at Post Graduate Government College (PGGC), Sector 11, Chandigarh today. The program was attended by 100 NCC Cadets who belonged to Army, Air Force, Navy and Girl Wings of the Armed forces, During occasion, the Cadets took an oath to not smoke ever in their life .

 

Among others Brig J.S. Arora, Group Commander NCC Chandigarh, Wing Commander J. S. Jeji ,Commanding Officer, 1 Chandigarh Air Squadron NCC, Chandigarh and Dr J S Raghu, Principal, PGGC and Doctors from Oncology and Pulmonology team of MSSH, Mohali including Dr Vinay kumar, Dr Sunandan Sharma, Dr Pankaj Kumar, Dr Deepak Bhasin, and Dr Shaveta Gupta were presented during occasion.

 

While addressing the Cadets, Dr. Sachin Gupta, Sr Consultant, Medical Oncology, MSSH said that although Chandigarh was a no smoking city since 2007, there has been an upswing of lung cancer cases being reported. Since these were the people who have been habitual smokers since long. The risk of getting lung cancer would remain high even 20 to 30 years after leaving the habit of smoking, warned Dr Gupta. Dr. Gupta further said that The New England Journal of Medicine study found that smoking already accounts for 9,00,000 deaths a year in India. In fact, about 90 percent of lung cancer deaths in men and almost 80 percent of lung cancer deaths in women were due to smoking. People who smoke were 10 to 20 times more likely to get lung cancer or die from lung cancer than people who did not smoke.

 

Explaining what happens when one smoke, Dr. Sachin informed that the nicotine travelled to the bloodstream and then to the brain. This would take only 8 seconds. It would make the heart beat faster, increases the blood pressure, decreases the sense of smell and taste, makes the teeth and fingernails become yellow and makes your breath become smelly.

 

There were over 4000 chemicals in a single puff of cigarette smoke and 69 of them were known carcinogens, pointed out Dr. Deepak Bhasin, Sr Consultant, Pulmonology, MSSH while delivering a talk on topic 'Cigarette smoking and the youth'.  The 30% cancer deaths in India were due to tobacco use. The experts predicted 1.5 million smoking deaths in India by 2020.  Exhorting the NCC Cadets to give up tobacco, Dr. Bhasin asserted that whether it was chewing tobacco, snuff, pipes, cigars or cigarettes, they were all equally dangerous and accounted for 1 out of every 10 deaths in India.

 

Dr Sunandan Sharma said that as the young Indian generation would get more and more westernized, we have picked up negative ideologies of the advanced world. The pop and the pub culture have gripped the young generations.

 

During occasion a skit presentation was also made by the Cadets demonstrating the harmful ingredients used in tobacco products.