If you are thinking of starting to smoke, well here’s just another reason to avoid cigarettes altogether. There are studies showing an increase of ovarian cysts in smoking women, than in nonsmoking women. And this study indicates that you should never even start to smoke.

One of the first studies published in 1988 linking ovarian cysts to smoking was published in the International Journal of Fertility in the November-December issue. It was entitled Smoking and Cysts of the Ovary, by Wyshak G, Frisch RE, Albright TE, Albright NL, and Schiff I. And it comes from the Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts. So far, I’m impressed.

This study asked a large group of college alumnae from age 21 to 80 if they ever had ovarian cysts, at what age they got them and the treatment they got. It turns out that women who never smoked had a lower lifetime incidence of ovarian cysts than former or current smokers. They also made a connection between the earlier occurrence of cysts in the ovary of smokers. Now this news is rather bleak if you are already a smoker looking to quit. But there is some good news resulting from this study that I’ll tell you about in a moment.

There was a more recent study conducted in 1994 and reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology in their April 15 edition. It is entitled, Cigarette smoking and functional ovarian cysts. Written by Holt VL, Daling JR, McKnight B, Moore DE, Stergachis A, and Weiss NS, this study comes from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle Washington.

This Washington study revolves around 15 to 39 year old patients of the Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound. It compared the incidence of ovarian cysts of smokers to current non smokers. It did not take into account those who had smoked and quit in their group of non smokers. The risk among these current smokers compared to the non smokers was double. So it confirms the connection between smoking and ovarian cysts.

The good news that I mentioned from the first study was that when they compared the occurrence of ovarian cysts in athletes there was a significantly lower risk to them. So it would seem that an active lifestyle is associated with a decrease in the incidence of ovarian cysts. One of the things that I would do if I was a smoker who stopped smoking, and was concerned about getting ovarian cysts, is to become more active. A regular exercise program, or involvement in a sport on a regular basis would be a line of defense that I would gladly encourage.

If you are currently smoking and are looking to stop smoking, you can use this article to add to your ammunition of reasons to quit. Get as much desire within you so that you can use that desire and motivation to remind you what you are doing every time you light up. Using your mental abilities to remove the smoking habit from your unconscious behaviors is one of the first steps to mastering control. You can use hypnosis to quit smoking or any other mind/body methods of learning new behaviors.

Ultimately you want to replace the old bad habit of smoking with a new healthier behavior that will in time become a habit.