Have you ever wondered what happens to your body when you use tobacco related products? You are damaging your body in numerous ways, inside and outside. Your life expectancy also goes down, you get diseases, and death threating cancers. In this repot I’ll be explaining how tobacco affects your body.
The World Health Organization said that tobacco is one of the biggest public threats of the 21st century. In 2013 nearly six million people died from around the world from tobacco and the W.H.O predicts that number will rise to 8 million by 2030. Nearly 80 percent of those deaths are in developing countries, where smoking is growing. People who smoke have a life expectancy 14 years less than a non-smoker. About 480,000 of those deaths were in the United States more than aids, alcohol-related live disease, drug abuse, automobile accidents, murders, suicides and fires combined. 1 in 5 deaths in the U.S. are related to tobacco use. Over 500,000 deaths were from illnesses related to 2nd hand-smoke exposure. Almost half of people who smoke die from smoking related causes. In the United States 45.3 million people smoke- that’s 19.3 percent of all the adults, 21.5 percent men and 17.3 percent of all women smoke. About 20 percent of all the high school students admitted to smoking. Over 5 million children will die prematurely. Tobacco has more than 7,000 chemicals, about 70 of those can cause cancer and others to cause your cells to genetically mutate, and that can cause cancer. Cigarettes have a chemical called nicotine that is highly addictive. Some of the chemicals that are inside a cigarette are tars, nitrosamines, polycyclic hydrocarbons, carcinogenic chemicals (a substance capable of causing cancer in living tissue). Smoking causes cancer in lungs, larynx, esophagus, mouth bladder, and a whole lot of other places. Smoking also causes cardiovascular disease, chronic lung ailments, canary heart disease and can also cause you to have a stroke. Smoking make your lung cancer disease worse by making the lung inflammation increase, U.S researchers have found out. The University of California, San Diego School of Medicine tested mice with early lung cancer lesions and exposed them to tobacco smoke. They found out that the mice formed larger tumors and more quickly than mice who weren’t exposed to tobacco smoke. The Cancer Cell Journal said that lung inflammation caused by chronic exposure to tobacco smoke increases lung cancer growth. When you smoke you are also inhaling in a gas called carbon monoxide. That gas interferes with the transportation and utilization of oxygen throughout the body. Smoke the directly inhale is called mainstream smoke and the smoke coming from the cigarette or being exhaled by the smoker is called side stream. Inhaling the smoke from a smoker is called second hand smoking. The smoke being exhaled from the smoker or from the cigarette is called environmental tobacco smoke. Environmental tobacco smoke is probably more carcinogenic than mainstream smoke because it has smaller carcinogenic particles that can get stuck in your lungs than the particles that are in mainstream smoke. The Environmental Protection Agency classified environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) at group A, a group reserved for the most dangerous carcinogens. In 1996 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) said that 9 out of 10 non-smokers are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke.(Scona, Kathleen, N.p.)
In 1997 the American Heart Association (A.H.A.) said that women regularly exposed to environmental tobacco smoke have a 91 percent risk of having a heart attack. If you are occasionally exposed you have a 58 percent of having a heart attack for women and men. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that environmental tobacco smoke is responsible for over 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 46,000 for heart disease. There is no safe way to be exposed to environmental tobacco smoke so a lot of municipal governments, workplaces have banned cigarette smoking. (Consumer Health News, N.p.)
Scientist did a study of 28 kids to look at the impact of second-hand tobacco smoke exposure on markers of allergies such as immunoglobulin E levels (a marker of allergies). The study showed an increased risk of allergies in kids exposed to second-hand smoke and the risk was higher in children under seven years old. (Tobacco smoke exposure and allergies, N.p.)
Here are some of your body parts and what happens to them when you smoke. You probably already know that nicotine is addictive and when you smoke your brain changes. The brain forms more nicotine rectpors to take in the larger doses of nicotine from tobacco. When your brain stops getting the nicotine it’s used to you will feel anxious, irritable, and get strong cravings for nicotine; this is called nicotine withdrawal. Smoking decreases the oxygen supply to the cochlea a snail shaped organ in the inner ear. This could result in permanent damage to the cochlea and mild to moderate hearing loss. Smoking causes physical changes in the eyes that can affect your eyesight. Nicotine from cigarettes reduces the production of a chemical needed for you to be able to see at night. Smoking even increases your risk of developing cataracts and macular degeneration (both can lead to blindness). People who smoke have a more oral health problems than non-smokers like mouth sores, ulcers and gum disease. You also have a greater chance to have cavities and lose your teeth at a younger age. You are also more likely to get cancers in the mouth or throat. Smoking can lead to you having dry skin and lose elasticity causing you to have wrinkles and stretch marks. Your skin could become dull and grayish. By your early 30’s you can have wrinkles around your mouth and eyes making you look older. Smoking increases your blood pressure and puts stress on your hearth. Over time the stress on your hearth can make it weaker making it less able to pump blood to your body parts. The carbon monoxide you inhale from the cigarette also contribute to the lack of oxygen making your hearth work even harder. This increases the risk of you getting a heart disease or getting heart attacks. Smoking also makes your blood thick and sticky. The stickier the blood the harder it is to move around your body. Over time the thick and sticky damages the delicate lining of your blood vessels. This can lead to a heart attack or a stroke. Smoking causes inflammation in the small airways and tissue of your lungs. This can cause your chest to feel tight or cause you to wheeze or feel short of breath. If you keep smoking the inflammation builds up scar tissue which leads to physical changes in your lungs and airways making it harder to breath. Smoking destroys the tiny air sacks or alveoli located in your lungs that allow oxygen exchange. Each time you smoke you are damaging some of those air sacks. If you didn’t know alveoli don’t grow back so once you destroy them you have permanently destroys part of your lungs. When sufficient alveoli are destroyed a disease called emphysema develops. Emphysema causes severe shortness of breath which can lead to death. In your lungs you have tiny brush like hairs in your lungs called cilia. The cilia in your lungs cleans out dirt and mucus so your lungs stay clear. Smoking temporarily paralyzes and even kills cilia. Smoking cause you to be more at risk for infection. Smokers get more respiratory infections and more colds than non-smokers. (How does tobacco use affect the human body, N.p.)
Did you also know that you can give your kids attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder also known as ADHD from smoking when you were pregnant a nation study suggest? The study was done on 4,704 children who were 4 to 15 years old. Surveyors recorded that 4.2 percent of the children analyzed had ADHD and had also been prescribed stimulants to treat the condition. The researchers collected blood samples from the children to see how much lead was in their blood to see whether the mom smoke during pregnancy and whether anyone subsequently smoked in the child’s home. The study showed that moms who smoked during pregnancy- but not those later exposed were 2.5 times likely to get ADHD the study shows. Kids with the highest lead concentration were 4.1 times to get the disorder than kids with the lowest lead concentration. Seeing how many children are the taking drugs for ADHD about 1.8 million nationwide have the disorder. At least 480,000 of the cases could be from exposure from tobacco smoke. (Cigarettes and lead linked to attention disorder p.238)
So if you want to be a smoker you are going to have to deal with this health problems that affect your body in many ways and that can lead to death.