Facts About Smoking and Harmful Health Effects Of Smoking

Tobacco smoking is prevalent in most of the countries of the world. According to a survey made in 1945,on an average 20 cigarettes a day were smoked by every adult in U.K. Since that time there has been so much information about the link between coronary disease ,lung cancer and tobacco that it resulted in definite  drop in smoking in U.S.A.Half of the adults in U.K smoke and every year there are 50,000 deaths in U.K which can be contributed to smoking.

SMOKING LEADS TO CORONARY DISEASE

1.Tobacco smoke contains nicotine ,tar and carbon-monoxide. It has been proved that nicotine raises the level of fatty-acids in the blood system and this may lead to blood clotting and eventually to coronary diseases.

SMOKING AND LUNG CANCER

1. Besides carbon particles ,there are other irritants in tobacco smoke ,such as phenols, aldehydes  and cyanides and these increase the danger of cancer in lungs. Statistically, smoking has been proved to have definite links with lung cancer, which is our commonest  cancer in an age when cancer deaths are on the increase. The death rate from cancer of the lung in heavy cigarette smokers is thirty times more than that of non-smokers.

SMOKING AND WEIGHT

1.While it is true that smoking tends people to eat less and therefore brings down their weight,it is wrong to suggest that  being 5kg overweight is more dangerous than smoking 20 cigarettes a day.In fact ,overweight non-smokers are more energetic than smokers.

OTHER RISKS OF SMOKING

1.Gastric and duodenal ulcers are much commoner  among smokers as compared with non-smokers.

2.Moreover,in the case of pregnancy ,the children of mothers who are non-smokers are healthier and bigger than those of mothers who smoke ..This is due to the carbon monoxide present in blood stream of mothers who smoke as this is responsible for depriving  the   fetus of some of its oxygen supply. This also increases the chance of still births and miscarriage.

3.Heavy smokers generally suffer chronic bronchitis and smokers’ cough.

4.Where  pollution is high and cigarette smoking is also indulged in ,the effect of this combination on chest diseases can be very serious.
RISKS OF SMOKING TO NON-SMOKERS

1.If a person spends considerable time among people who are smoking or in a car which is full of cigarette smoke ,then by merely inhaling the smoke regularly ,they absorb appreciable amount of nicotine and tar and thereby  increase the amount of carbon-monoxide and tar in the human system may eventually lead to coronary disease and lung cancer.

STOP SMOKING