Why Smoking Is Bad? - Some Things You Didn’t Know
By Clare Innes | August 17, 2008
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I don’t want to bang on about what harm smoking can do to your body, because you are well aware of that already, I’m sure. The threats of the health hazards are so ‘old hat’ now that no-one even takes any notice anymore. Just one question from me though…in these days of health and fitness, why bother with your five portions of fruit and veggies, and going down the gym three times a week, if you’re not going to give up the ciggies?
Whilst all the messages of smoking causing ill-health are pretty much ignored nowadays, due mainly to overkill I think, I have included in this article a few of the lesser known problems that are caused by smoking:
What a lot of people don’t realise is that just one cigarette contains more than 4000 chemical compounds and around 400 of those are actually toxins (poison, to put it plainly). When you inhale on your cigarette, the tip burns at 700 degrees centigrade, whilst the core has a heat of around 60 degrees. What happens here is that the heat breaks down the tobacco to make various toxins, which are then concentrated towards the butt. You receive the worst of the ‘poison’ as you finish your cigarette.
The most damaging products are:
1) Tar, a carcinogen that causes cancer
2) The addictive substance is nicotine, which raises cholesterol too
3) The oxygen in your body is reduced by carbon monoxide
The problems caused by smoking can be influenced by:
1) How many cigarettes you smoke
2) Whether the cigarette has a filter or not
3) How has the tobacco been prepared
It has been shown that life expectancy can be improved by as much as seven or eight years if you do not smoke, but not only that, recent research has shown that if you continue smoking from a young age, people are dying of smoking related illnesses at much younger ages.
The number of people under the age of 70 who die from smoking-related diseases exceeds the total figure for deaths caused by breast cancer, AIDS, traffic accidents and drug addiction.
I know you’re all going to shout, ah c’mon at this one, but the ugly truth is this…if you started smoking at an early age, smoke more than 20 a day and inhale deeply, the greater your chances of getting lung cancer. It then takes roughly 15 years for your risk of getting lung cancer to drop to that of a non smoker.
Oral cancers (cancers of the mouth) are four times more common in smokers than non smokers, a fact that many smokers are unaware of. A disease called Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is also affected very badly by smoking, which is responsible for 80 percent of cases.
A further illness affecting the lungs is emphysema, which 94 percent of a pack a day smokers have when their lungs are examined post mortem (when they’re dead!). Compare that to a non smokers lungs of which 90 percent have little o none. Not too impressive huh!
When anyone ages, it is a natural process for their lung function to slowly reduce. However, for a smoker this can be as much as three times faster. Over years, you can expect to become more and more breathless, until needing constant oxygen, hospital care and then death due to slow suffocation…NOT GOOD.
Here’s one that I bet you guys didn’t know about (at least, not until it was too late!). For men in their 30s and 40s, smoking increases the risk of erectile dysfunction (ED) by about 50 per cent. Erection can’t occur unless blood can flow freely into the penis, so these blood vessels have to be in good condition. Smoking can damage the blood vessels and cause them to degenerate; nicotine narrows the arteries that lead to the penis, reducing blood flow and the pressure of blood in the penis.
Don’t think that because you have no problems now, that you won’t. Oh no…this narrowing problem increases over time so things could get worse later on (no apologies for scare tactics here). More importantly, a smoker with erectile problems should see a doctor, as this can be an indicator that cigarettes have already damaged other blood vessels, including those that supply blood to the heart.
The ’side-stream’ smoke that comes off a cigarette between puffs carries a higher risk than directly inhaled smoke, so you’re not doing your non-smoking partners, kids, friends, etc., any good either…feeling guilty yet…?
Children who grow up in a home where one or both of their parents smoke have twice the risk of getting asthma and asthmatic bronchitis. They also have a higher risk of developing allergies. Infants under two years old are more prone to severe respiratory infections and cot death.
It has been proven that the risk of lung cancer is increased amongst people who smoke ‘passively’ but as yet there is no proof of whether the risk of heart disease is also increased. You can be sure though, that you can look forward to a much healthier old age if you can stop smoking.
So after all this, what is my message? Well I hope to have given you one or two things that you had never thought of before to think about. There are folks out there who love you, and there are 100’s of stop smoking programmes to help you too. Go on, give it a go…and stop smoking now!
Topics: Stop Smoking |
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