Tobacco smoke contains chemicals that weaken the body’s immune system, making it more susceptible to disease and handicapping it’s ability to destroy cancer cells. At the same time, tobacco smoke can damage cell DNA, increasing the chance for cancer cells to form and flourish in the first place.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD), such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis is a condition that makes it difficult to breathe and gets worse overtime. In addition to shortness of breath, COPD can cause severe coughing, excess mucus production, wheezing, and chest tightness. The disease affects more than 24 million Americans. Smoking is the leading cause of COPD, but other factors can contribute, such as prolonged exposure to air pollution.

Asthma is an inflammatory disease characterized by recurring attacks of narrowed, swollen airways, causing shortness of breath, wheezing and coughing. One of the most common chronic disease in kids, asthma’s prevalence has been increasing year after year. In the United states 25 million people suffer from Asthma, and 7 million of them are children.

1. Number 1 cancer killer in the United States. Approximately 160,000 people die from Lung cancer every year.

2. Benefits of quitting smoking are immediate. Just 20 minutes after quitting your heart rate and blood pressure drop. Within a few weeks, blood circulation and lung function improve. Within a few months the sweeper cells that help clean the lungs, remove mucus, and reduce the risk of infection start to regrow. And within a year of quitting, your smoking related risk of coronary heart disease becomes half that of current smokers (Ref2)

3. Compared to broccoli avoiding smokers, the broccoli eating smokers suffered 41 percent fewer DNA mutations in their bloodstream over ten days (Ref3)

4. 85 percent of women die within five years of a lung cancer diagnosis. Ninety percent of those deaths are due to metastasis, the spread of the cancer to other parts of the body. Certain compounds in broccoli may have the potential to suppress this metatstasis spread (Ref4)

5. The indian spice Turmeric may help prevent and/or arrest cancer cell growth. Curcumin, the bright yellow pigment in turmeric is the most promising compound for cancer preventing activity in clinical trials (Ref5)

6. A study of women in china found that smokers who stir-fried meat everyday had nearly three times the odds of lung cancer compared to smokers who stir-fried foods other than meat on a daily basis. Fumes from pan fried fish or grilled meat have been found to contain high levels of carcinogens such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs) and Nitrosamines capable of damaging the DNA of human lung cells (Ref6)

1. COPD kills approximately 140,000 people in the United States annually and affects more than 24 million Americans

2. A landmark study in 2010 showed that dietary shift to Antioxidant rich fruits and vegetables not ony halted the progression of COPD among chronic sufferers, but also improved lung function (Ref2)

1. Kills approximately 3,000 children in the United States annually, and affects 25 million Americans (Ref1)

2. Study of more than 100,000 adults in India found that those who consumed meat daily, or even occasionally, were significantly more likely to suffer from asthma than those who excluded meat from their diets altogether (Ref2)

3. Removing eggs and dairy from the diet has been shown to improve asthmatic children’s lung function in as few as 8 weeks (Ref3)

4. Researchers out of Australia tried removing fruits and vegetables from asthma patients’ diets to see what would happen. Within two weeks asthma symptoms grew significantly worse. The same experiment was repeated by adding more fruits and vegetables, and this ended up succesfully cutting the study subjects’ exacerbation rate in half. According to this study plant based whole food interventions are most effective (Ref4)

5. Researchers in Sweden decided to test out a strictly plant based diet on a group of severe asthmatics who weren’t getting better despite the best medical therapies. Of the twenty four patients who stuck with the plant based diet, 70 percent improved after 4 months, and 90 percent improved within one year. Within just one year of eating healthier they were able to drop their dose of asthma medication or get off their steroids and other drugs altogether (Ref5)