If anyone made a New Year’s Resolution to quit smoking and is having a heard time quitting, the health of your pet might be a reason to help you quit. Smoking causes about 90% of all lung cancer deaths, and also causes a number of other illnesses, including heart disease and stroke. However, smoking affects people around the smoker as well. Within the last 50 years, approximately 2.5 million non-smoking people have died in the United States due to exposure to second-hand smoke. Smoke can also cause other problems in our pets such as bronchitis or asthma, which can be a life-threatening disease.
A professor of medicine and oncology performed a study to see the effects of smoking on household pets. She analyzed the nicotine levels in the fur of animals and looked at the condition that the animals’ cells were in. She found that there were higher levels of nicotine in the animals that lived in smoking households. She found that cats had more nicotine than dogs in and concluded it was because the cats spent more time grooming their fur, and ingesting more nicotine. The professor discovered, that compared with pets in non-smoking houses, pets in smoking households are at greater risk of cell damage, cancer and weight loss.
In addition to this discovery, research was done on how to reduce these risks. The professor found that in houses were people smoked only outside, the nicotine levels in the pets were significantly lower. So before you feel the urge to smoke and break that resolution, think of the effects it can have on your four-legged friend.
