Today begins the 32nd annual Great American Smokeout of 2008. While smoking is an addiction, and thus difficult or even near impossible to stop, there are many reasons to quit - and I shouldn't have to tell you them.

Anyone who has ever tried smoking probably remembers that first cigarette vividly. For some, it brought a wave of nausea or a nasty coughing fit. For others, those first puffs also came with a rush of pleasure or "buzz."

A cigarette company was a major sponsor of a much-publicized study of CT scanning as a way to screening smokers for lung cancer.

The proverbial cigarette after a Valentine’s Day snuggle can prematurely end a love affair, as new evidence emerges that a common defect in a gene significantly increases a smoker’s risk of an early heart attack. Researchers say that as much as 60 to 70 percent of the population has a gene defect that delivers a one-two punch to smokers:

A 20-year review of scientific research on tobacco and cancer challenges the idea that moist snuff — increasingly popular in the United States — can be a safer substitute for cigarette smoking. The review, by Stephen S. Hecht, is scheduled for the Jan. 1 issue of ACS’ Chemical Research in Toxicology.

Scientists are reporting the first successful strategy to reduce smokers’ nicotine dependence while allowing them to continue smoking. The study provides strong support for proposals now being considered in Congress to authorize FDA regulation of cigarette smoking, according to the research team.

The medication bupropion plus counseling appears to help adolescents quit cigarette smoking in the short term, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

The list of reasons you shouldn't smoke has gotten longer. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are reporting that smoking interferes with ligament healing.

Where there is cigarette smoking there is probably misuse of alcohol too, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine researchers in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

New research at Rhode Island Hospital studied the chronic effects of smoke inhalation by examining the lungs of 21 survivors of The Station fire (February 20, 2003). While the overall results of the study showed variability in the chronic effects, the study noted that the most severely impacted were non-smokers.

In classic movies, cigarette smoking was used as shorthand to convey sultriness and beauty. In the real world, the connection between smoking and one's appearance - as many studies have shown - has more to do with premature signs of aging and less to do with glamour and refinement.