Smoking has all sorts of negative impacts on health and wellbeing, but people use it as stress relief. Stressed deprived people are more likely to start smoking as they find it relieving and soothing even though they are aware of the impact it might have on health.
Smoking is an action or habit of inhaling and exhaling the smoke of tobacco or a drug in cigar, shisha etc. Tobacco smoke contains more than 4, 000 chemicals, out of these more than 70 are carcinogens. These substances include tar, nicotine, benzene, carbon monoxide, ammonia, formaldehyde, polonium, and hydrogen cyanide. The thing that makes people addicted to smoking is the nicotine in tobacco it is an addictive drug. Each cigarette contains about 10 milligrams of nicotine. Nicotine is effective especially when it's addictive and has effects on health. Nicotine causes irritation and burning sensation in the mouth and throat, increased salivation, nausea, abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea. When a smoker is trying to get rid of their smoking habits they need to use ‘nicotine patches’ as they could even die without using nicotine. Also, Tar is toxic and damages the smoker's lungs. Tar chemical can be found in phlegm. There are different effects of tar on a smoker. The tar will line the cilia inside the trachea and the bronchi paralyzing the smoker and causing damage. It will also sit in the bottom, of the lungs causing damage to the alveoli.
The damage to the alveoli is called ‘emphysema’. Emphysema is a long term, progressive disease of the lungs that fundamentally causes shortness of breath due to over inflation of the alveoli. There is no cure for this disease. Tar can have a major impact on pregnant women. It can affect fertility causes harm to the unborn child.
Using other tobacco products such as cigars or shisha that includes tobacco also increases the risk for lung cancer, Lung cancer is by far the most common cause of cancer death in the UK. Quitting smoking at any age or earlier can lower the risk of lung cancer. Cigarette smoking can cause cancer almost anywhere in the body.
Cancer is as any malignant growth or tumor caused by abnormal and uncontrolled cell division. There are two types of cancer, Benign; which can be removed and Malignant; which is harmful and can spread. About a third of all cancer cases are due to smoking, including:
- bladder cancer
- mouth cancer
- esophageal cancer
- kidney cancer
- pancreatic cancer.
Smoking is a major risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD). In fact, smoking also greatly increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. Both nicotine and carbon monoxide put a strain on the heart by making it work faster. They also increase your risk of blood clots. Fatty deposits in the arteries increase blood pressure which puts a strain on your heart and can lead you to have CHD. Smokers are more likely to get strokes. More so the sudden death of a part of the heart muscle due to the loss of the blood supply to the heart caused by a clot travelling to heart which causes back age.
