The latest European beauty treatment can help women have healthy, glowing skin and visibly reverse premature skin aging from some causes, say health experts in Europe.

It's called quitting smoking. Cancer control officials in Europe are promoting its benefits, hoping the idea takes hold.

As a bonus, it can help prevent several forms of cancer, say experts.

Europe faces rapidly increasing lung cancer rates, with the disease increasing more quickly among women than among men. With these facts in mind, the Association of European Cancer Leagues (ECL) recently decided to tackle the problem head-on.

In a campaign aimed at encouraging women in Europe to quit smoking, the ECL has had to fight the same tobacco industry techniques used worldwide: billboards and other ads showing happy, healthy young women smoking while surrounded by sleek cars and other symbols of success.

The reality is quite different, says the ECL. Smoking is becoming largely a habit of less educated people and is less socially acceptable, according to the association.

Far from helping women to appear happy and healthy, smoking actually speeds up the normal aging of skin, making women look unhealthy and unattractive.

The ECL is getting that message out now with a public awareness campaign across Europe. Studies show young people focus more on short-term consequences, such as damage to physical attractiveness, than on any cause of a future death, say experts there.

A California skin cancer expert affiliated with the American Cancer Society (ACS), Susan Boiko, MD, says the European message is one that applies here, as well, where smoking-related diseases among women were called "epidemic" in a US Surgeon General's report earlier this year.

She says it's as easy to tell a smoker from a non-smoker in America as it is in Europe, just from appearances.

"People who smoke seem to have more wrinkling than others the same age, even in their 20s," says Boiko, a dermatologist in San Marcos, Calif., and a member of the ACS' skin cancer advisory board.

"If you stand a cigarette smoker next to a non-smoker, the smoker will look more haggard," says Boiko. "You get yellow fingers and yellow fingernails, puckered wrinkled lips, and a weathered appearance with a sallow color to the skin."

Boiko notes that an unpleasant odor and discolored teeth are common also among smokers.

Yet most smokers are not aware of how quickly or how much smoking can age the skin or diminish their general appearance, Boiko says, because they are in a state of denial.

Boiko says much skin damage from smoking happens because smoking causes constriction of blood vessels, reducing the skin's supply of oxygen and vital nutrients essential for skin health, and reducing the blood vessels' ability to carry away cellular waste products.

The damage to skin health from smoking is so severe, Boiko notes, most plastic surgeons won't do cosmetic surgery on individuals who have smoked in the previous six months. She says the healing process is severely compromised by smoking.

But Boiko agrees with the Europeans — quitting can make a remarkable difference in skin health.

"You can always quit; it's not like 'It's too late now; the damage is done,'" she notes.

"I tell my patients, 'Every cigarette you don't smoke adds years to your life, and beauty to your skin,'" says Boiko.

"And that's as true of skin here as it is in Europe," she adds.