Smoking….Killing YOU Softly
Posted by Tatiana Rodriguez | Filed under Smoking Side Effects
Is a Long, Slow Death What You Would Choose?
Nobody wants to die a slow death that involves pain, discomfort, trouble breathing, and treatments that involve awful side effects, which are sometimes worse than the symptoms of the disease. But the fact is that anyone who risks being a smoker is putting himself or herself at a very high risk of doing just that. Smoking increases your risk of heart disease, all kinds of cancer, stroke, throat and lung diseases, as well as a whole host of unattractive and uncomfortable minor problems.
Smokers produce a lot of phlegm, their skin gets really wrinkly, and they can’t breathe easily after even just a little bit of exercise. You also smell bad and lose your sense of smell, so you can’t even tell how bad you smell to non-smokers. Food doesn’t taste as good. There are all kinds of scary statistics on how smoking kills you, but what about the problems that won’t kill you?
Statistics on How Smoking Kills You
It turns out that most people who die of smoking-related diseases don’t just drop dead one day. Instead, they go through treatments like chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation. They suffer from painful diseases like esophageal cancer, they can’t breathe and have trouble doing anything physical because of lung disease. Their lungs gargle and they wheeze often. The statistics on how smoking kills you are pretty harsh, and the worst part is that every smoking-related death is a preventable death.
The estimated number of annual deaths from smoking and tobacco use worldwide is 5 million people. In the United States, about half a million people die each year. And then there are the statistics on how smoking kills you even if you’re not a smoker. About 49,000 people die each year in the U.S. alone from diseases related to second hand smoke. In particular, they die of heart disease and lung cancer.
So What Do You Get if You’re a Lifetime Smoker and You Finally Quit?
The great news is that you should quit now. Even if you’ve been smoking for ten years, you can extend your life by quitting now. Not only will you live longer, but you’ll have a much lower chance of developing a deadly terminal illness. Even people who quit around the age of 50 reduce their chances of getting sick by half. If you quit around the age of 30, you’ll be 90% less likely to contract one of the disabling and painful diseases associated with tobacco use.
And if you find that quitting smoking methods aren’t working, try a substitute method. There are some great ways to get the same nicotine fix as you do with cigarettes, but without the tar and smoke and toxins that are carcinogenic. Nicotine patches, gums, and lozenges are pretty popular. Electronic cigarettes are popular, too, even though they’re not yet an approved method for quitting smoking. Electronic cigarettes give you nicotine infused in water vapor, which is a pretty good alternative when you consider the statistics on how smoking kills you and what your life could be like if you don’t switch or quit.
Tags: smoking side effects
How Tar Affects Your Body and Health
Posted by Tatiana Rodriguez | Filed under Smoking Side Effects
There’s a lot of talk about tar and that it is something that should be avoided. Low tar cigarettes are advertised as a healthier alternative, and cigarette filters are specifically there to reduce the amount of tar that you breathe into your lungs when smoking. But the fact is that no matter how much or how little tar is filtered out, you will always be inhaling tar when you smoke. Tar is also known as tobacco smoke condensate; in other words, when tobacco smoke condenses, tar is the result.
Tar particles are gummy and toxic. They lodge themselves in your lungs, reducing your lungs’ ability to absorb oxygen into the blood stream. Your blood also picks up a lot of the toxins in tar and the immune system is constantly fighting to get the tar out of your body. Smoking gives your immune system a full-time job without any rest, which means that you are more likely to get sick and you are less prepared to fight off disease.
Diseases Resulting From or Exacerbated By Tar
By inhaling cigarette smoke and allowing tar to collect in your lungs, you increase the risk of contracting a number of serious and potentially deadly diseases. The most common results of smoking are bronchitis, emphysema, and lung cancer.
Bronchitis is the inflammation of the tissue lining the bronchial tubes, which are the airways that connect the lungs and the trachea. Every time you inhale, you breathe air through your bronchial tubes and into your lungs. Smoking brings toxic chemicals into your bronchial tubes and the tar that builds up irritates the sensitive tissue lining. The symptoms of bronchitis are a hacking, chesty cough and difficulty breathing. Chronic bronchitis is when the inflammation is continuous and results in excess mucus creation, and makes the likelihood of contracting pneumonia or other bacterial infections much higher.
The bronchial tubes split off into smaller airways called bronchioles. At the base of bronchioles are air sacs that inflate when you breath in; they are critical to the process of breathing. When the air sacs break down, it is called emphysema, and eventually this leads to an inability to transfer oxygen from your lungs into the blood stream. Emphysema can also be caused by a protein deficiency, but the leading cause is inhalation of smoke and the accumulation of tar and poisonous chemicals in the air sacs. Symptoms include a chronic cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, chest tightness, and difficulty performing physical activities.
Most people think of lung cancer when they think of how tar affects your body and health. Of the 69 known carcinogens in tobacco smoke, any and all of them can contribute to lung cancer. However, there is a direct correlation between the number of milligrams of tar you inhale to your risk of getting lung cancer.
Quit Smoking
The only way to avoid inhaling tar into your lungs is to stop smoking. As long as you inhale smoke into your lungs, you are introducing tar into delicate tissues that will become irritated, degrade, and break down over time as a result. Maybe it’s time to start reading about e-cigarettes.
Tags: smoking kills, tar
Smoking Tobacco: Identifying the Carcinogens
Posted by Tatiana Rodriguez | Filed under Smoking Side Effects
For some people who have thought about quitting smoking, learning about the carcinogens found in tobacco products can help them finally make the decision to quit for good. Quitting is incredibly hard, even with some of the most tried and true quitting smoking methods. But the work is worth the benefits of quitting.
Known Carcinogens
Of the 7000 identifiable chemicals in tobacco, about 69 of them are known carcinogens. There are a number of suspected carcinogens as well as more than 250 harmful chemicals that we know cause other diseases and problems in the body. And cancer isn’t the only deadly disease that is caused or exacerbated by smoking cigarettes or using tobacco. These include heart disease, pulmonary disease, asthma, chronic bronchitis, aortic aneurysm, stroke, and pneumonia.
Some of the known carcinogens in tobacco include heavy metals like nickel, beryllium, cadmium, and chromium, toxic gases like 1,3-butadiene, and well-known poisons like arsenic, ethylene oxide, and benzene. In addition, some suspected carcinogens found in tobacco products include formaldehyde, benzoapyrene, and toluene.
Common Cancers Caused by Carcinogens Found in Tobacco Products
Most people think of lung cancer when they think of cancers caused by smoking tobacco, but it turns out that lung cancer is just one of many possible cancers you can be diagnosed with as a result of smoking. Esophageal cancer as well as cancer of the larynx, throat, and mouth are also common among tobacco users. Other common cancers caused by smoking include cancer of the pancreas, kidney, cervix, bladder, and stomach. However every single organ can be effected by smoking and tobacco use, and the health of the entire body and especially the immune system is negatively effected as well.
What About Nicotine?
Nicotine is the highly addictive substance found naturally in the tobacco plant. Tobacco leaves are poisonous to eat and nicotine is poisonous to consume in any form. However, nicotine is not known to be a carcinogen on its own. The major problem with nicotine is that it effects a smoker’s ability to quit, and therefore it turns the carcinogens found in tobacco products into an irresistible treat to people who are addicted to tobacco.
Nicotine products, such as nicotine gum, lozenges, patches, or electronic cigarettes, are used to help people to quit smoking because changing the delivery system of the nicotine can have beneficial effects. There are a number of benefits that can be seen immediately when you stop smoking, even if you continue to use a nicotine product. These include lowered levels of carbon monoxide in the blood within just a few hours, which means more oxygen will travel throughout the body. Within a few weeks, smokers will find their sense of smell improves as well as their ability to taste the food they eat.
Lung function and the ability to exercise and do other physical activity returns within a couple of months. While most people focus on the carcinogens found in tobacco products, there are many other reasons to quit smoking. Overall quality of life improves once you quit.
We used this source when writing this story: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cessation
Tags: cigarettes, smoking
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