Smoking has, in a number of places attained the state of an epidemic. Especially in the countries like the USA it has been formally declared as an epidemic with more and more children taking up this injurious habit. The efforts that have been taken up towards the goal of spreading awareness against this fatal addiction have not shown any desirable result as of now. It is hard to tell how many smokers have been influenced by the campaigns against this dreaded disease. Nevertheless, doctors and scientists are working incessantly to know this addiction better and thus rescue the human population and also the human environment from this lethal addiction.

Surveys and studies on smoking are being carried out in all the nooks and corners of the world and the results that they are yielding are really novel and path breaking. Day in and day out a new portion of the human body is being discovered as a victim of the smoke. It won't be wrong to say that the harmful effects of smoking have not spared any working part of the human body. The issues of passive smoking and the harms it inflicts on the environment have been all very extensively discussed. Keeping in sync with the characteristic of smoking, a study conducted in the Mayo Clinic in Boston revealed that smoking can also worsen the condition of an ailment called knee osteoarthritis in elderly men. Earlier it was not thought that there was a relation between knee osteoarthritis and smoking. But this study has proved just the opposite. Men having knee osteoarthritis have witnessed a loss in their cartilage as compared to their non smoking counterparts.

Doctors believe that this co relation between smoking and knee osteoarthritis is basically because of three primary causes. Firstly, cell proliferation might be hampered in the knee cartilage due to smoking. The second possibility is that as smoking raises the levels of carbon mono oxide in arterial blood, it might lead to a condition called tissue hypoxia that can in turn create problems in cartilage repair. The third possibility that might worsen knee osteoarthritis is due to the fact that there are chances of smoking leading to an increase in oxidant stress that leads to cartilage loss.

Smoking has been tried to be subdued with the help of modern science. Drugs have been invented by well known companies that will help a person in curbing his addiction. Known as the anti smoking drugs in the market, these pills are also available with the online pharmacies. Chantix, and are some well known aids for quitting. It has been well marketed; a well known characteristic of Pfizer, this can be known from the bulk of queries received each day. In case you plan to buy chantix online you have the chances of getting a cheaper deal as some of the online medical stores offer discounts.