SMOKING kills and you should give up before it is too late.

Today is national no smoking day and this is the powerful message from Dr Diane Laws, thoracic medicine consultant at Royal Bournemouth Hospital, who treats people with deadly smoking related diseases every day.

Dr Laws told the Daily Echo there continues to be a steady stream of patients with blackened, smoke damaged lungs coming into the hospital needing treatment for everything from emphysema, asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, pulmonary fibrosis and even impotence.

“If you are a smoker you are 26 times more likely to have lung cancer than somebody who has never smoked,” she added.

“If you get lung cancer, the prognosis is dreadful – most people will die within a year.

“The vast majority of the patients I see in the chest clinic either are or have been smokers. Getting a lung disease as a non-smoker is relatively rare. For lung cancer, 90 per cent would have been smokers.”

Lung cancer kills more people in the UK than any other type as well as causing heart problems and cosmetic issues such as bad skin, teeth and breath.

Studies have shown that those who stop smoking at 60 will typically increase their life expectancy by three years, while stopping at 30 can increase it by 10 years.

And Dr Laws said she is particularly concerned about the continuing trend of young girls taking up the habit with many still seeing it as ‘cool’ and a good way to stay looking thin – but that no matter what your age, it is never too late to give up.

“It is always worth stopping smoking – and there are a lot of facilities in Dorset to help people,” she added.

And although 20 per cent of people in the UK still light up, Dr Laws said there has been a reduction in heart disease since the smoking ban in pubs and bars, adding: “The effects of smoking reduces within 10 years of stopping. If you stop smoking your heart goes back to pretty much that of a non-smoker in 10 years. The sooner you stop the better.”