urge to smoke

The effect of stopping smoking for five hours on the factors governing the availability of oxygen from the blood i.e Carboxyhaemoglobin, haemoglobin concentration and 2,3 - DPG were studied on 26 smoker subjects and 16 non-smoker subjects. The results obtained show that in the smoker subjects, the rate of breakdown of Carboxyhaemoglobin is much higher than 2,3 - DPG during the period of stopping. The mechanism and the effect of this difference on the availability of oxygen that might contribute in the urge for smoking after this period is discussed