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Vincent Buu // Valerie Trinh // Ledia Nasr

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Vincent Buu // Valerie Trinh // Ledia Nasr

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Period 6

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There's no getting away from it: smoking's terrible for you. You probably already know that half of smokers will die as a result of their addiction, and that smoking accounts for a quarter of all cancer deaths in the UK each year.

But giving up is really difficult, which is why there are still 10 million smokers in the UK, with 3-4 million people trying to give up at any one time.

The government introduced a new Tobacco Control Plan, which aims to drastically reduce the number of Brits who smoke by 2022.

So how do you shake the habit? There are so many ways to try and beat it.

Here, we take a look at the different ways to stamp out your addiction...

1. Cold turkey

This is a tough but effective approach. Recent studies have shown that those who stop abruptly are 25% more likely to succeed than those who try to wean themselves off gradually.

If you decide to go cold turkey, pick a date and stick to it. Make sure you choose a time when your calendar isn't packed with boozy social events or during a stressful time at work.

Live by the 'not a single puff' rule. Repeat the mantra, 'Not even a single drag,' until the craving passes. According to the NHS, a craving usually lasts around five minutes, so make a list of five-minute distraction strategies to tide you over when it strikes.

2. Patches, gum and lozenges

Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) works by delivering a hit of nicotine through other means to help curb your cigarette cravings, as you get used to life without lighting up. Nowadays NRT is available in many forms - patches, gum, lozenges, inhalers - and the good news is it's available on the NHS.

Studies show that using NRT can double your chances of quitting, but it does come with a downside: repeated exposure can cause neuro-adaptation that increases nicotine addiction.

Nicotine alone is significantly less harmful than the tar and carbon monoxide found in cigarettes, so NRT is much safer than smoking. But in order to avoid trading one addiction for another, it's important to avoid using NRT for an extended length of time. Speak to your GP or go to Smokefree.nhs.uk to find your local Stop Smoking Clinic.

3. The vape debate

E-cigarettes are available in all sorts of designs and flavours, so it's easy to see why 2.9 million Brits are hooked on them - but the debate about their safety rages on. Keeping your hands busy while being devoid of tar, carbon monoxide and other nasties found in cigarettes means they're often deemed a safer alternative (the NHS says e-cigs are 'not risk free, but carry a fraction of the risk of cigarettes'). However, several studies have indicated that vaping may cause cellular mutations that can lead to cancer. Because it's so new, there's a lack of conclusive evidence, so vape with caution.

4. Hypnotism

It might sound a bit 'out there', but hypnotherapy has helped thousands to quit. In fact, in a study of 6,000 smokers, it was found to be the method with the highest success rate.

"It only takes a few days for the nicotine to leave your body, so what you're left with is a psychological craving," says hypnotherapist Brian Jacobs. "Hypnosis addresses the craving while in a deep state of relaxation."

Starting at around £170, hypnosis doesn't come cheap, and although individual doctors may prescribe it, it's not currently available on the NHS. Choose a therapist registered at General-hypnotherapy-register.com .

5. Play Tetris

Playing the video puzzle game Tetris for three minutes can stave off a cigarette craving, according to research from Plymouth University.

The study, published in the scientific journal Appetite, says it helps provide a distraction from a craving, which normally lasts for only a few minutes before passing.

6. Ditch coffee for herbal tea

Nicotine "withdrawal" can make you feel jittery. But stimulants like caffeine in coffee can make your anxiety worse.

What's more, one study found that coffee actually makes cigarettes taste better!

7. Set the date and time to stop

Smoke like normal to that date, right up to it. Don't try and cut down beforehand as that builds up the idea that the cigarettes are precious. Then quit on the given day. Have one final cigarette and then that's it.

8. Look at your diet

We all know that food plays a role in cravings. A US study showed that some foods, including meat, make cigarettes more satisfying. So change it up. Cheese, fruit and vegetables make cigarettes taste terrible. Swap the burger for a veggie one and you won't like the taste of that cigarette.

Change your routine too and after a meal get moving so you're distracted.

9. Change your drink

The same study also looked at drinks. Fizzy drinks, alcohol, cola, tea and coffee make cigarettes taste better. The idea is to drink more water and juice.

10. Join a support group

If friends of family want to give up, try and do it together. It's easier to give up when supported by others. There are local support groups you can join. You're four times more likely to quit if you have expert advice and help.

11. Exercise

These may seem obvious, but they're still important. Exercise is next. Even a five minute walk or stretch cuts cravings and helps your brain produce anti-craving chemicals.

12. Adapt how you socialise

When you're at a party mix with non-smokers, it's easier to quit when people aren't popping out or inviting you to join them for one.

13. List your reasons

Lastly list the reasons you're quitting. When you struggle look at the list.

14. Get professional help

(Image: Original: Flickr/Seattle Municipal Archives)

It may sound obvious, but your starting point should be to speak to a medical professional.

There's the Stop Smoking helpline on 0300 123 1044 for information, or a referral to the free NHS Stop Smoking Services. They can even send you a kit to keep you motivated and informed of your progress.

Pregnant women seeking help in stopping smoking can call the pregnancy Quitline on 0800 169 9169.

Your doctor, pharmacist, or health visitor should be able to support you to quit or to refer you to Stop Smoking Services in your area. Or head to your local Boots or check out the online Stop Smoking clinic for free advice and prescription medication.

For further informal and advice, take a look at the Stopping Smoking section on the ASH website.
■ Call the NHS Smokefree National Helpline to speak to an expert adviser: 0300 123 1044
Our writer Rosie on being hypnotised to quit

"First, a hypnotherapist spent half an hour talking to me about my reasons for wanting to give up, before leading me through some relaxation techniques that, to my surprise, sent me into an almost trance-like state.

Over the next 30 minutes, I was guided through visualisations (imagining cigs had the face of someone I hate and stamping on them!) and affirmations, then linked a happy memory to the phrase, "You are a non smoker."

It's only been a week since the hypnosis, so I can't say for sure whether it's worked. But my cravings have almost entirely disappeared and it's a relief not to be smoking any more."
Rosie saw leading hypnotherapist Brian Jacobs. A stop smoking session at his London clinic costs from £295. Visit hypnoticsolutions.co.uk

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Best ways to quit smoking - 14 ways to shake the habit

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There's no getting away from it: smoking's terrible for you. You probably already know that half of smokers will die as a result of their addiction, and that smoking accounts for a quarter of all cancer deaths in the UK each year.

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To date, the most effective medical imaging tools have relied on fluorescent proteins - a technique based on jellyfish genes that resulted in a Nobel Prize in 2008 - but that does not work well for cells in the middle of the body because light gets absorbed on its way out of tissues.

While there is no guarantee this technique will ever be applied to human patients - the Caltech experiments were conducted with mice - it already can prove valuable in lab testing of drugs. A former official at biotech firm, Vion Pharmaceuticals, that experienced a failed trial in the first-ever attempt to use Salmonella as a cancer-fighting agent decades ago, said this week it might have continued with more trials if this technique had been available because the ultrasound would have allowed it to better track the bacteria to see if they were successfully colonizing patient tumors - Vion had to use tissue biopsies.

The immunotherapy market is projected to be worth as much as hundreds of billions of dollars in the next few decades, and both venture capital and stock market investors have been investing in biotech firms developing these therapies. The study of the role that inflammation plays in disease has also become a key goal of medical science. And research related to the microbiome - the millions of types of microorganisms including bacteria that live in and on our bodies, especially in the gut - has also been booming.

"Some patients respond and some patients don't, and the question is did cells not get to the right place, or not in enough numbers, or got there but the therapy was not effective," Shapiro explained. "Depending on the answer to those questions, what you do next could be very different." He added that in drug development and patient treatment, "ideally you answer these questions sooner rather than later, you don't wait for the cancer to progress."

Researchers not directly involved in the Caltech study wrote in an accompanying piece for Nature this week that outlined the implications of the acoustically engineered bacteria, "Some medical approaches currently in use or being developed introduce bacterial cells as a therapy for gut disease or cancer, so this ultrasound technique might be adapted for clinical use to determine whether such cells have reached the desired location."
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As in the case of the jellyfish gene, Caltech researchers went looking in the natural world for an organism with the right properties to bounce off soundwaves. They found one in a photosynthetic microbe in bodies of water that evolved a gas-filled vesicle inside their cells that could modulate density. As a result, these gas-filled proteins could produce signals under ultrasound. In ultrasound, sound waves move through tissue and when encountering something with another density or stiffness, some of sound waves gets reflected back, Shapiro said, equating it to sonar in the ocean. The Caltech researchers engineered the gene for that gas-filled nanostructure into benign versions of E. coli and Salmonella.

Now the Caltech team has moved on to a larger goal with this gene - engineering it into the T-cells that are vital to immunotherapy. "The first step was to put it into bacteria to see if we can image those bacteria, and image in the body, but the bigger picture goal is to do it in any kind of cell. We want to put the same genetic set into immunotherapy to track it."

He said that is very active research in the Caltech lab now, and "it's doable. With improvements in this technique and if it is well tolerated by cells, ultimately we would like to see it in humans."

But Shapiro said it will be years before Caltech researchers know if the approach works with T-cells similarly to in bacteria, but the ultimate goals of this technique span from basic science to targeted therapies.

"We want to see things like cells and cellular functions happening inside the body. We want to know how cancers form and how microbes live, because in the body is different than in the lab," Shapiro said. "Even just to answer basic questions on what microbes do in mammals, there are still lots of open questions on diseases that this technique can help answer."

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Medical breakthrough: New bacteria engineered with 'sonar' can track and fight disease

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To date, the most effective medical imaging tools have relied on fluorescent proteins - a technique based on jellyfish genes that resulted in a Nobel Prize in 2008 - but that does not work well for cells in the middle of the body because light gets absorbed on its way out of tissues.

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All living beings have genes. They exist throughout the body. Genes are a set of instructions that determine what the organism is like, its appearance, how it survives, and how it behaves in its environment.

Genes are made of a substance called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA. They give instructions for a living being to make molecules called proteins.

A geneticist is a person who studies genes and how they can be targeted to improve aspects of life. Genetic engineering can provide a range of benefits for people, for example, increasing the productivity of food plants or preventing diseases in humans.

What are genes and what are they made of?

Genes are responsible for all aspects of life.

Genes are a section of DNA that are in charge of different functions like making proteins. Long strands of DNA with lots of genes make up chromosomes. DNA molecules are found in chromosomes. Chromosomes are located inside of the nucleus of cells.

Each chromosome is one long single molecule of DNA. This DNA contains important genetic information.

Chromosomes have a unique structure, which helps to keep the DNA tightly wrapped around the proteins called histones. If the DNA molecules were not bound by the histones, they would be too long to fit inside of the cell.

Genes vary in complexity. In humans, they range in size from a few hundred DNA bases to more than 2 million bases.

Different living things have different shapes and numbers of chromosomes. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, or a total of 46. A donkey has 31 pairs of chromosomes, a hedgehog has 44, and a fruit fly has just 4.

DNA contains the biological instructions that make each species unique.

DNA is passed from adult organisms to their offspring during reproduction. The building blocks of DNA are called nucleotides. Nucleotides have three parts: A phosphate group, a sugar group and one of four types of nitrogen bases.

A gene consists of a long combination of four different nucleotide bases, or chemicals. There are many possible combinations.

The four nucleotides are:

Different combinations of the letters ACGT give people different characteristics. For example, a person with the combination ATCGTT may have blue eyes, while somebody with the combination ATCGCT may have brown eyes.

To recap in more detail:

Genes carry the codes ACGT. Each person has thousands of genes. They are like a computer program, and they make the individual what they are.

A gene is a tiny section of a long DNA double helix molecule, which consists of a linear sequence of base pairs. A gene is any section along the DNA with instructions encoded that allow a cell to produce a specific product - usually a protein, such as an enzyme - that triggers one precise action.

DNA is the chemical that appears in strands. Every cell in a person's body has the same DNA, but each person's DNA is different. This is what makes each person unique.

DNA is made up of two long-paired strands spiraled into the famous double helix. Each strand contains millions of chemical building blocks called bases.

What do genes do and where do they come from?

Genes decide almost everything about a living being. One or more genes can affect a specific trait. Genes may interact with an individual's environment too and change what the gene makes.

Genes affect hundreds of internal and external factors, such as whether a person will get a particular color of eyes or what diseases they may develop.

Some diseases, such as sickle-cell anemia and Huntington's disease, are inherited, and these are also affected by genes.

How we get our genes

A gene is a basic unit of heredity in a living organism. Genes come from our parents. We may inherit our physical traits and the likelihood of getting certain diseases and conditions from a parent.

Genes contain the data needed to build and maintain cells and pass genetic information to offspring.

Each cell contains two sets of chromosomes: One set comes from the mother and the other comes from the father. The male sperm and the female egg carry a single set of 23 chromosomes each, including 22 autosomes plus an X or Y sex chromosome.

A female inherits an X chromosome from each parent, but a male inherits an X chromosome from their mother and a Y chromosome from their father.

The Human Genome Project

The Human Genome Project (HGP) is a major scientific research project. It is the largest single research activity ever carried out in modern science.

It aims to determine the sequence of the chemical pairs that make up human DNA and to identify and map the 20,000 to 25,000 or so genes that make up the human genome.

The HGP has opened the door to a wide range of genetic tests.

The project was started in 1990 by a group of international researchers, the United States' National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Energy.

The goal was to sequence 3 billion letters, or base pairs, in the human genome, that make up the complete set of DNA in the human body.

By doing this, the scientists hoped to provide researchers with powerful tools, not only to understand the genetic factors in human disease, but also to open the door for new strategies for diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.

The HGP was completed in 2003, and all the data generated is available for free access on the internet. Apart from humans, the HGP also looked at other organisms and animals, such as the fruit fly and E. coli.

Over three billion nucleotide combinations, or combinations of ACGT, have been found in the human genome, or the collection of genetic features that can make up the human body.

Mapping the human genome brings scientists closer to developing effective treatments for hundreds of diseases.

The project has fueled the discovery of more than 1,800 disease genes. This has made it easier for researchers to find a gene that is suspected of causing an inherited disease in a matter of days. Before this research was carried out, it could have taken years to find the gene.

Genetic testing

Genetic tests can show an individual whether they have a genetic risk for a specific disease. The results can help healthcare professionals diagnose conditions.

The HGP is expected to speed up progress in medicine, but there is still much to learn, especially regarding how genes behave and how they can be used in treatment. At least 350 biotechnology-based products are currently in clinical trials.

In 2005, the HapMap, a catalog of common genetic variation or haplotypes in the human genome, was created. This data has helped to speed up the search for the genes involved in common human diseases.

Recent discoveries: The epigenome, gene marking, and gene therapy

In recent years, geneticists have found another layer of heritable genetic data that is not held in the genome, but in the "epigenome," a group of chemical compounds that can tell the genome what to do.

In the body, DNA holds the instructions for building proteins, and these proteins are responsible for a number of functions in a cell.

The epigenome is made up of chemical compounds and proteins that can attach to DNA and direct a variety of actions. These actions include turning genes on and off. This can control the production of proteins in particular cells.

Gene switches can turn genes on and off at different times and for different lengths of time.

Recently, scientists have discovered genetic switches that increase the lifespan and boost fitness in worms. They believe these could be linked to an increased lifespan in mammals.

The genetic switches that they have discovered involve enzymes that are ramped up after mild stress during early development.

This increase in enzyme production continues to affect the expression of genes throughout the animal's life.

This could lead to a breakthrough in the goal to develop drugs that can flip these switches to improve human metabolic function and increase longevity.

Gene marking

When epigenomic compounds attach themselves to DNA in the cell and modify the function, they are said to have "marked" the genome.

Scientists can learn more about how diseases arise from gene marking.

The marks do not change the sequence of the DNA, but they do change the way cells use the DNA's instructions.

The marks can be passed on from cell to cell as they divide, and they can even be passed from one generation to the next.

Specialized cells can control many functions in the body. For example, specialized cells in red blood cells make proteins that carry oxygen from air to the rest of the body. The epigenome controls many of these changes within the genome.

The chemical tags on the DNA and histones can become rearranged as the specialized cells and the epigenome change throughout a person's lifetime.

Lifestyle and environmental factors such as smoking, diet and infectious diseases can bring about changes in the epigenome. They can expose a person to pressures that prompt chemical responses.

These responses can lead to direct changes in the epigenome, and some of these changes can be damaging. Some human diseases are due to malfunctions in the proteins that "read" and "write" epigenomic marks.

Some of these changes are linked to the development of disease.

Cancer can result from changes in the genome, the epigenome or both. Changes in the epigenome can switch on or off the genes that are involved in cell growth or the immune response. These changes can cause uncontrolled growth, a feature of cancer, or a failure of the immune system to destroy tumors.

Researchers in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) network are comparing the genomes and epigenomes of normal cells with those of cancer cells in the hope of compiling a current and complete list of possible epigenomic changes that can lead to cancer.

Researchers in epigenomics are focused on trying to chart the locations and understand the functions of all the chemical tags that mark the genome. This information may lead to a better understanding of the human body and knowledge of ways to improve human health.

Gene therapy

In gene therapy, genes are inserted into a patient's cells and tissues to treat a disease, usually a hereditary disease. Gene therapy uses sections of DNA to treat or prevent disease. This science is still in its early stages, but there has been some success.

For example, in 2016, scientists reported that they had managed to improve the eyesight of 3 adult patients with congenital blindness by using gene therapy.

In 2017, a reproductive endocrinologist, named John Zhang, and a team at the New Hope Fertility Center in New York used a technique called mitochondrial replacement therapy in a revolutionary way.

They announced the birth of a child to a mother carrying a fatal genetic defect. Researchers combined DNA from two women and one man to bypass the defect.

The result was a healthy baby boy with three genetic parents. This type of research is still in the early stages, and much is still unknown, but results look promising.

Scientists are looking at different ways of treating cancer using gene therapy. Experimental gene therapy may use patients' own blood cells to kills cancer cells. In one study, 82 percent of patients had their cancer shrink by at least half at some point during treatment.

Gene testing to predict cancer

Another use of genetic information is to help predict who is likely to develop a disease, for example, early-onset Alzheimer's disease and breast cancer.

Women with the BRCA1 gene have a significantly higher chance of developing breast cancer. A woman can have a test to find out whether she carries that gene. BRCA1 carriers have a 50 percent chance of passing the anomaly to each of their children.

Genetic tests for personalized therapy

Scientists say that one day we will be able to test a patient to find out which specific medicines are best for them, depending on their genetic makeup. Some medicines work well for some patients, but not for others. Gene therapy is still a growing science, but in time, it may become a viable medical treatment.

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Genes: What are they and why are they important?

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All living beings have genes. They exist throughout the body. Genes are a set of instructions that determine what the organism is like, its appearance, how it survives, and how it behaves in its environment. Genes are made of a substance called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.

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Technology

Technology benefits us both negatively and positively. A positive influence it has on us is that it can help detect whatever disease we have in our bodies so that we can eliminate them right away. For example, doctors use machines to get get rid of cancer cells known as chemotherapy.  A negative impact it has on us is it can ruin our health. An example is the blue light from our phones that could lead to bad eyesight. We can control what type of technology we use and how it could benefit us and the amount of time we use technology.

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Social environment may benefit us by showing us what type of decisions must be made in order to have a healthy lifestyle. An example of a negative impact is when your fried pressures you to smoke. A positive impact is when you know when to cross the street or how to treat other people.  A person can control what type of friends they choose to be influence by.

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Media impacts our everyday lives greatly, mainly because everyone and everything is put on media websites. The information we receive could be completely false but we still believe it as everything is put on media sites. Media and Social Media outlets create international ignorance about many topics because we fail to look any further than a screen and our fingertips.  A person can control what type of media website they choose to visit on, whether good or bad.

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The physical environment surrounding us has a great influence on our health and development. The physical environment for us refers to the physical components of the area in which we grow, work, and play.  Examples are how you're exposed to disease causing organisms or to loud noise or to the radiation caused by the sun.  A person can control where they choice in be exposed in the sun.  They cannot control the outcomes of these organisms in near our body.

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Healthcare includes the medical services provided by doctors, nurses, dentists, hospitals, etc.
A positive example of healthcare affect our health is to diagnose our sickness at any given moment such as a flu or surgery.  A negative impact of healthcare affecting your health is if you are doing surgery and it fails.  This will ultimately end your life as a whole if done so.  A person can control the healthcare they choose by securing if it is from a good source.  However, they cannot control how much money it will need to pay for these annual cost.

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Culture influences your health in multiple ways.  A positive way of culture being beneficial to your health is to brush your teeth everyday.  This will allow your dental hygiene to improve as we brush our teeth daily.  A negative impact of culture affecting our health is if your family smokes ever since you are born.  Your life will be accustomed to the habit of smoking to the point where you will start smoking too.  This will negatively impact our health by decreasing lung capacity dramatically. A person can control both these example however it will be extremely difficult.

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Behavior is the decision you make and the actions you take that often have the greatest impact in your life.  An example of a positive behavior is remembering to brush your teeth 2 times a day.  This will affect your physical health by providing a habit that will become beneficial to your dental hygiene.
An example of a negative behavior is to smoke 12 cigarettes a day.  This will also affect your physical health negativity by decreasing your lung capacity and getting a hairy tongue.  A person can both brushing their teeth and their habit of smoking.

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Heredity may influence us in a negative way or positive way. A negative way that we can be impacted by our genes is a genetic disorder given to us by our parents. For example, we can inherit cystic fibrosis. A positive way we can be influenced by genes is our parents' height. If they're both tall, you will most likely be tall too.  A person cannot control these risk factors.