Smoke, Smoke, Smoke that Cigarette . . .

Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette.
Puff, puff, puff until you smoke yourself to death.
Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait,
But you just gotta have another cigarette.

—from a song Phil Harris (photo at right) used to sing.

Sometimes after an anti-smoking rant, I ask myself: Does any smoker actually decide to stop because of something they've read here? After all, anyone with at least a toe-hold in reality already knows that smoking is self-destructive?

Yet if you are still a smoker, at some point some piece of information, somewhere, may turn out to be the tipping point. That you will have finally had enough. Could this be it? Read on.

Health Day reports that current smokers without the gene for Alzheimer’s were 70 percent more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than nonsmokers or former smokers without the gene.

Before you light up the next one, read more about the researchers' findings here.