Smokeless Tobacco Quitting Tips

Smokeless Tobacco Quitting Tips: "Today oral tobacco lesions (leukoplakia) are being detected in about 1.5% of students, projected at 300,000 nationally, with substantially greater incidence among snuff than chewing tobacco users. But in only 26 per 100,000 cases each year do the white spots actually develop into oral cancer. That means that among the 5 million U.S. smokeless tobacco users, at most there are 1,300 oral cancer nightmares each year, nightmares which kill about half within five years.
Looking at such statistics, the rationalizing snuff or chewing tobacco user probably won't put death from oral cancer at the top of their list of concerns. Likewise, a 2.23 greater risk of sudden heart attack (four times greater for chewers who also smoke) may not be sufficient to motivate quitting without first experiencing stabbing type chest pains. Even then, getting serious about quitting often requires a doctor's 'quit or drop-dead' ultimatum. But what oral nicotine users would be wise to note are growing concerns that long-term nicotine use may actually be eating away and destroying their brain.
An increasing number of experiments show that long-term nicotine use reduces the number of brain neurons, increases the signs of cell death in brain tissue and impairs working memory. A September 2006 study used MRIs to examine the brains of smokers. It found significantly less brain grey matter volume and density, with loss of grey matter proportional to the number of years smoked."