Dangerous Effects From Smoking

Chemicals Contained in Tobacco

Decades of research has established a link between the dangerous effects from smoking and cancer. Tobacco smoke contains over 50 known carcinogens lead to  lung disease, stroke and heart disease. Tobacco use can also increase the chances of throat and mouth cancers, bladder, kidneys, pancreas and cervix, this evidence along should convince you to quit?

Let these facts help you in that decision making-

Smoking and Heart Ailments

The chemicals contained in tobacco, the main ingredient of cigarettes and cigars, are scientifically known to damage the red and white blood cells apart from hampering the normal functioning of the heart. This damage makes you prone to the following diseases:

• Aneurysms: A condition in which your blood vessels may burst, resulting in crucial damage to the system or sudden death.
• Atherosclerosis: An infirmity where a waxy substance known as plaque builds in the arteries, disrupting the blood flow. This plaque is responsible for the coronary heart diseases commonly found in people with smoking habits.
• Peripheral Arterial Diseases: A condition in which plaque is found in arteries that supply blood to the limbs, organs and head.
• Heart attack, heart diseases and arterial damage.
• Stroke: A condition in which brain cells suffer a sudden death due to excessive bleeding or clotting in blood vessels.

To sum it up, breathing  smoke can modify blood chemistry apart from causing severe damage to the blood vessels. The inhaled smoke interacts with the cellular lining of the blood vessels, creating uproar in the blood pressure and heart rate, along with narrowing or thickening of blood vessels.

Smoking and the respiratory tract

While smoking on those little dudes, a sense of satisfaction crawls through your body. But what you don’t realize is that with every puff of the nicotine-charged air, there’s an increased possibility of your lungs going down the drain.

Smoking leads to:

• Emphysema: One of the major drawbacks of smoking is that the walls between your air sacks lose their elasticity and therefore, cannot shrink back to their original position, once stretched. The lung tissue suffers permanent damage, making breathing next to impossible.
• Chronic bronchitis: A condition in which the bronchial tubes lining swells up, hence decreasing the amount of air entering and leaving the lungs.
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Also known as COPD, this disease causes chest tightness, short breath, wheezing and gets worse over the years.
• Pneumonia: People who smoked more than 20 cigarettes per day were almost three times more likely to acquire pneumonia than persons who never smoked, according to a study in the August issue of CHEST.
• Asthma: “Smoking is unhealthy for everyone, but especially for someone with asthma. The lungs of a smoker, with or without asthma, may not work as well as they should. The person might cough, wheeze, and have shortness of breath. Smoking causes the airways to become swollen, narrow, and filled with sticky mucus — the same problems that cause breathing trouble in people with asthma. For this reason, a smoker who has asthma is more likely to have more frequent and severe flare-ups.Being a smoker is an obvious risk, but just being around people who smoke — and breathing in secondhand smoke — can cause problems, too. Parents can help kids and teens with asthma by protecting them from the effects of tobacco smoke”.
• Reference; http://kidshealth.org/parent/asthma_center/preventing_flareups/smoking_asthma.html

Smoking and bones

According to several studies, the more you smoke, the less your bone density. Smoking, among others, is one of the main factors leading to osteoporosis, an ailment where the bones weaken and are prone to frequent fractures. Quitting smoking abates the risks for low bone density and fractures. Also, starting smoking at an early age ups the risks for osteoporosis among females by lowering estrogen levels and expediting menopause.To pile it on, smoking is also linked to several vision impairments like cataract, nerve damage and cancers. So as they say, stop smoking and start living!

Stay Away from Tobacco