Student study in America verifies the effectiveness of the Smokerlyzer® motivational traffic-light system when encouraging smokers to quit.
Barren County High School seniors Taryn Kerley and Becca Calvert recently conducted a study with a Smokerlyzer® carbon monoxide (CO) monitor and found that smokers are more likely to want to quit after seeing their CO levels.
The study called “Effects of Education and Exhaled Carbon Monoxide Testing on Smoking Cessation in a Rural Kentucky Community” looked at 30 people ranging in age from 16 to 50+ and found “there was a significant difference in the desire to quit smoking from before they saw their (carbon monoxide) level to after they saw their carbon monoxide level” said Calvert.
The Smokerlyzer® measures the harmful amount of CO that is inhaled from smoking, which can show how much a patient has been smoking, giving smoking cessation advisors an idea on the level of dependency that the smoker has. The Smokerlyzer® is quick, non-invasive and the traffic light system also acts as a motivational visual aid to encourage the user to quit smoking and to measure their progress whilst doing so. Red indicates a regular smoker with higher levels of CO in their blood, amber would indicate a light smoker, whilst green is the reading of a non-smoker and the ultimate aim.
The carbon monoxide from smoking damages the lining of your arteries, which can lead to angina, a heart attack, a stroke and Buerger’s disease[1,2]. It is also the biggest contributable factor to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD), thought to be responsible for around 90% of cases[3]. Additionally smoking can cause up to 14 types of cancer[4], most significantly lung cancer, of which deaths are the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, with cigarette smoking accounting for 80% of lung cancer deaths in men and 50% in women[5]. Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from second-hand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day[6].
Jason Smith, managing director at Bedfont®, the UK-based company who manufactures the Smokerlyzer®, comments, “It’s really great to see the Smokerlyzer® getting noticed overseas – 80% of our sales are from exporting and the Smokerlyzer®, which is one of our core breath analysis products, has helped thousands of people quit smoking worldwide for over 30 years now. Hopefully the benefits of the Smokerlyzer® will continue to be recognised so that it can help people quit smoking, one breath at a time.”