By Val Willingham
CNN Medical Producer

I don't smoke. But I have a good friend who does. For years, she's been trying to quit, using patches, gum, group therapy, even exercise programs designed to help you "lose your cravings." She's gone cold turkey, smoked fake cigarettes and many times begged buddies to take her cigarettes and throw them in the trash if they saw packs in her home or car. And although she's had a few smoke-free periods in her life, she's never really quit the habit. She says it's just too hard.

Of course she's not alone. Drug experts say nicotine is more difficult to kick than heroin. Of the 44 million people in the U.S. who smoke, the American Cancer Society says, 70 percent of those smokers confess they want to quit and about 40 percent do quit each year. Yet only 4 percent to 7 percent actually give up smoking, without help, for good.

But now there may be hope. The National Institute on Drug Abuse, a division of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded Nabi Biopharmaceuticals a $10 million grant to take its anti-nicotine vaccine into phase 3 human research trials over the next few months. Called the NicVAX, the vaccine is designed to stimulate the immune system to generate antibodies that would latch on to nicotine in a smoker's body and actually prevent nicotine from ever entering the brain.

When a smoker inhales a cigarette, nicotine is absorbed through the lung tissue, into the bloodstream and carried through the body. Because nicotine is a small molecule, it easily crosses the blood brain barrier into the brain. The nicotine then binds to receptors in the brain, which release dopamine, which is a stimulant that gives the smoker a pleasurable sensation, known as a "smoker's high."

This process occurs very rapidly in the body, less than one minute after tobacco smoke is inhaled, so the nicotine fix is quick. That's what causes the addiction.

The NicVAX vaccine creates antibodies that bind to nicotine in the bloodstream, blocking it from crossing into the brain, through the brain-blood barrier. That's because these nicotine-specific antibodies are large molecules and are too big to cross into the brain. So the bound nicotine is trapped in the blood and can't reach the receptors that trigger that release of dopamine, which is what causes the pleasure response.

It's believed that the addiction of the smoker to nicotine will gradually diminish because as the antibodies created by NicVAX continue to bind the nicotine, the amount of nicotine reaching the brain will gradually decrease.

According to Nabi, these phase 3 trials could begin by the end of the year. The companys says that so far, the results have been promising with few side effects. In the phase 2 trials reports, Nabi says "a statistically significant number of participants treated with the NicVAX optimal dose were able to quit smoking and remain abstinent over the long term at rate of nearly three times that of those receiving the placebo. In addition, those participants that continued to smoke and but showed a high antibody response to NicVAX significantly reduced the number of cigarettes smoked over the full 12-month period from a baseline of 20 cigarettes per day to 10 cigarettes per day."

The vaccine will be tested over a six-month period with participants receiving a vaccine every four weeks. .The antibodies should remain in the body for a long period of time. Just how long, researchers don't know yet. Trial sites will be located across the country. You can check on clinicaltrials.gov if you're interested in becoming a participant.

I am sure my friend will be waiting to sign up.

But here's the question. Would you be willing to take a vaccine periodically to help you quit the habit? Or do you have a method that has helped you to remain smoke free? We'd like to hear.

Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

By David S. Martin
CNN Senior Medical Producer

An orthopedic surgeon told me the story recently about a 300-plus pound man whose feet gradually failed under his immense weight - until he walked on the inside of his ankles.

He required complicated surgery on each foot and ankle – 3 ½ hours in the OR, a night in the hospital and months of rehab each time. The bill ran into the tens of thousands of dollars for a problem largely attributable to his weight.

“Bones aren’t any bigger than they were thousands of years ago,” the surgeon told me. Unfortunately, we are. And bones and tendons don’t grow to accommodate body weight.

The debate about health care is largely about dollar figures. How much will it cost? How will it affect the deficit? How much will it raise our taxes?

There are a couple of figures that don’t often make the debate, and they may pose an even greater challenge. I’m talking about the obesity rate and the percentage of Americans who continue to smoke.

A government-sponsored study recently estimated that medical spending for obesity reached $147 billion in 2008, almost doubling in the past decade. It’s not surprising. About 32 percent of American adults are obese, a condition linked to diabetes, heart disease, even cancer. As the story above illustrates, obesity can also do a number on your bones and joints.

If you want an idea of how big $147 billion is, it’s roughly 6 percent of all health care spending in the United States.

How about smoking? Almost 21 percent of American adults are addicted to cigarettes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s more than 45 million people. The estimated health care costs pegged to smoking: $96 billion.

It’s virtually impossible to live in the United States and not be aware of the health risks associated with smoking, yet the addictive habit continues – with tragic consequences for smokers and an immense burden on the health care system.

The Congressional Budget Office caused an uproar when it projected that Obama-backed changes in the health care would add $239 billion to the deficit over 10 years.

That’s nothing compared with the cost of obesity and cigarettes. Over 10 years, those costs top $2.4 trillion.

And that leads to the obvious question: How would you get Americans to lose weight and quit smoking?

Editor’s Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

By Elizabeth Landau
CNN.com Health Writer

Since allergy season began in late March, I have been trying to avoid settings where a lot of people are likely to be smoking. Even outside in Atlanta’s hipster neighborhood of Little Five Points, I found myself coughing uncontrollably last week when walking past a group of people smoking on a corner. Allergists agree that cigarette smoke aggravates allergies.

But a new study recommended by the Faculty of 1000 Biology challenges this conventional wisdom. Researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands took mast cells, which play a role in the immune response to allergies, from mice, and treated them with a smoke-infused solution.

They found that the smoke treatment prevented the mast cells from releasing inflammation-induced proteins, which is what normally happens when exposed to allergens. The smoke solution did not affect other mast cell immune functions, the researchers said. This anti-allergy effect would likely hold true for humans, they wrote.

The general idea that smoke would help allergies is surprising, said Dr. Stanley Fineman, allergist with the Atlanta Allergy and Asthma Clinic.

“In humans, we know from the patients that we see that cigarette smoke is very irritating to the mucosa, the lining of the airways,” he said. “People who have allergies tend to have inflamed respiratory mucosa.”

Years of patient work has shown that smoke is detrimental to people with allergies, he said.

Whatever benefits to allergies cigarette smoke may theoretically carry, the costs are hard to ignore: Cigarette smoking accounts for about 30 percent of all cancer deaths nationwide, according the American Cancer Society. About 87 percent of lung cancer deaths, the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women, are caused by smoking. Smoking can also lead to other types of cancer.

Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

By Danielle Dellorto
CNN Medical Producer

“What was he thinking?” That seems to be the common reaction when fans hear the news that Olympic superstar Michael Phelps got caught smoking pot. What’s interesting is, as I dug deeper, I realized people weren’t too concerned that his behavior may harm his health, but more appalled that his getting caught could cost him millions of dollars in endorsement money.

This got me thinking that a lot people look at marijuana as having very limited impact on our health. One friend made his case to me with absolute certainty in his tone, “In the big scheme of things, smoking pot is not going to hurt me.” He added, “At least I don’t smoke cigarettes.”

But is that really true? Are cigarettes worse for your health than marijuana? An overwhelming amount of research says not so fast.

Smoking one marijuana cigarette sends the same amount of tar into the lungs as four tobacco cigarettes. Turns out pot contains about 400 chemicals and 50 percent more carcinogens than a tobacco cigarette. Carcinogens cause damage to the DNA in our cells, increasing your risk for lung infections, heart disease and even cancer.

Pot is becoming as addictive as tobacco too. What’s being sold today is not your parents’ generation of marijuana. A study released last summer compared pot being smoked today with what was smoked back before 1992 and concluded it is 175 percent more potent, resulting in more frequent use and increasing it's addictive properties.

The short-term health effects probably won’t surprise you: impaired judgment, forgetfulness, difficulty focusing. But the long-term effects are physical. Marijuana smoking causes asthma, chest colds, lung infections and increased heart rate. Experts believe marijuana causes more damage to the respiratory system than cigarettes because pot smokers hold the smoke in their lungs longer than a person inhaling tobacco.

People may not realize their chronic chest cold could be the result of smoking pot and quite frankly for some people it may not even matter. But for a professional athlete, a swimmer no less, who relies on the strength of his lungs to win gold medals — the health ramifications just don’t seem worth it.

So here are my questions for you: Why is it so common for people to believe smoking pot doesn’t impact your health? Were you surprised by what you read? And don’t forget to sound off on Phelps. I want to know what YOU think he was thinking!

Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.

By Sabriya Rice
Medical Associate Producer

Over the weekend, I went to a Greek bistro with friends and immediately noticed the lovely, fruity smell filling the room. That's when I saw an oddly shaped, smoky gadget passing from person to person. The hookah. I'm not a smoker, and really didn't think twice about it until the hookah passed by my table and several people adamantly insisted I have a puff.  When I mentioned I am training for a half-marathon and, for the sake of my lungs, I would have to decline, I was told "Relax!"  Followed unanimously by, "It's healthy and it doesn't do damage like smoking cigarettes!" Since the aroma didn't jar in me the same "ick" reaction cigarette smoke often does, I was tempted to believe them. I declined but the journalist in me naturally wanted more information.

The hookah has been used for centuries, particularly across regions of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia, as a means of smoking tobacco. It is essentially a water pipe, and many believe the water helps filter out the toxins from the tobacco.  Some historians believe the myth of the healthy hookah started more than 500 years ago, when an Indian physician offered the idea, essentially, as a means of boosting sales for his new device. Alas, despite its alluring, fruity aroma, the truth is, smoking the hookah is no safer than smoking cigarettes. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control, hookah use carries many of the same risks as cigarette smoking including: exposure to high levels of toxic compounds, increased risk of oral, esophageal and lung cancers, reduced lung function and decreased fertility.  In fact the World Health Organization estimates the typical one-hour session of hookah smoking exposes a person to almost 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette. And sharing the hookah puts smokers at greater risk for transmission of diseases including tuberculosis and viruses like herpes and hepatitis. And yes, secondhand smoke from hookahs poses an equally serious risk to non-smokers like me.

I guess the moral of the story is, don't believe everything you hear. If you're going to smoke, no matter what the fashion, it's best to be aware of the consequences. As for me, if I'm going to choose my poison, as they say, I suppose I'll just stick to my chocolate addiction and to my own personal myth that eating tons of chocolate is actually good for me. The good thing though, is that my lungs will be healthy enough to actually run my half-marathon, and, I hope, curtail some of the negative effects of my vice.

Has this ever happened to you? Are there any practices people tell you are healthy, but you're not entirely convinced?

Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.