• 51%-56% of all smokers wish to quit smoking.

• 3,500,000 people in the world die each year from cigarettes.

• About half of all regular cigarette smokers will eventually be killed by their habit.

• Over 40,000 careful studies have proven that smoking causes disease and death.

• Smoking accounts for one in 7 cancer deaths worldwide.

• Less than 10% of lung cancer patients survive five years after diagnosis.

• Smokers who smoke between 1 and 14 cigarettes a day have eight times the risk of dying from lung cancer compared to non-smokers. Smokers who smoke more than 25 cigarettes a day have 25 times this risk compared to non-smokers.

• Cigarette smoking increases the risk of having a heart attack by two or three times, compared with the risk to non-smokers.

• Women who smoke and take the contraceptive pill have 10 times the risk of a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular disease compared with those who take the pill but are non-smokers. Smoking has also been linked with an increased likelihood of menstrual problems (although not with PMT).

• Smoking leads to an earlier menopause: on average women smokers go through the menopause up to 2 years earlier than non-smokers and are at a greater risk of developing osteoporosis.

• Tobacco and alcohol act synergistically in the case of oral and pharyngeal cancers. One study found that among consumers of both products the risk of these cancers was increased more than 35-fold among those who smoked two or more packs of cigarettes a day and took more than four alcoholic drinks a day.

• Giving up smoking can reduce the risk of developing many of these problems. Within 10-15 years of giving up smoking, an ex-smoker's risk of developing lung cancer is only slightly greater than that of a non-smoker. A young smoker suffering from chronic obstructive lung disease who gives up may see some improvement in lung function as a result: damage to lungs caused by years of smoking is permanent but quitting smoking prevents it worsening.

• Almost no-one starts smoking as an adult - the majority of people who take up smoking do so in adolescence.

• Smoking causes around 82% of all deaths from lung cancer, around 83% of all deaths from bronchitis and emphysema and around 25% of all deaths from heart disease.

• Although the common opinion, only a third of the people who quit smoking gain weight. 20% are even loosing weight.

• Smoking at an early age multiplies the chances of women to get a breast cancer by 4.

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