You can eat five servings of fruit or vegetables a day and exercise regularly - but, unfortunately, such healthy behavior will have very little effect on your health if you continue to smoke.
You can eat five servings of fruit or vegetables a day and exercise regularly - but, unfortunately, such healthy behavior will have very little effect on your health if you continue to smoke.
The message that "smoking is bad for you" is old and trite and you don't pay much attention to it anymore. So, to help and reawaken your attention, here are some health risks caused by smoking.
Why do you want to quit smoking?
Most people know that smoking causes damage, the most well-known of which is lung cancer, but it can also cause other types of cancer and other diseases. In the UK for example, smoking directly causes more than 100,000 deaths. Of these deaths, 42,800 are smoking-related cancers, 30,000 are related to cardiovascular disease, and 29,100 people die from emphysema, bronchitis, and other chronic lung diseases.
How does the cigarette cause damage to health?
Cigarettes contain more than 4,000 chemicals and at least 400 toxic substances. When you inhale, the cigarette burns at 700oC at its top end and around 60oC at the center of the cigarette. This heat breaks down the tobacco that produces various toxins.
When the cigarette burns, the remaining toxins are concentrated at the bottom of the cigarette.
The most harmful products in a cigarette are:
- Tar, which is a carcinogen (a substance that causes cancer)
- Nicotine, an addictive substance with side effects, including increasing the risk of arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure and heart disease.
- Carbon monoxide that reduces oxygen in the body.
- Components of gas and particulate emissions that cause chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
There are variable factors that affect the nature of the appearance of smoking damage in each and every person:
- The number of cigarettes the person smokes.
- If the cigarette is with a filter (filter).
- How was the tobacco prepared?
Smoking affects life expectancy
Studies have shown that smoking reduces about seven to eight years of life expectancy.
A study conducted in Great Britain shows that of the 300 people who die every day in Great Britain as a result of smoking, many are relatively young smokers. The number of people under the age of seventy who die from diseases related to smoking exceeds the total number of deaths caused by breast cancer, AIDS, car accidents and drug addiction.
Thus, non-smokers, and ex-smokers, can expect a healthier old age compared to those who smoke.
Smoking is also harmful to bone health
According to Dr. Primal Kaur (osteoporosis specialist at Temple University Health System in Philadelphia, United States), the years between childhood and thirty are the main period when bone mass is built. According to her, young people who smoke during adolescence do not develop the maximum bone mass. Eventually their skeleton will be smaller and have less bone mass, compared to non-smokers.
Smoking continues to affect bone health well into our forties and fifties. Women at these ages begin to lose estrogen, which is very important for bones. If they smoke, the loss of bone mass is faster and with more complications.
Nicotine and the toxins in cigarettes affect bone health from many angles:
Cigarette smoke produces huge amounts of free radicals - molecules that attack and overcome the body's natural defenses. The result is a chain reaction of damage that goes through the entire body, including cells, organs and hormones that are involved in maintaining bone health.
The toxins upset the balance of the hormones (like estrogen) that the bones need in order to stay strong. The liver produces more estrogen-destroying enzymes, which also lead to bone loss. Smoking causes a loss of bone mass to a greater extent than the loss caused by menopause. Basically, smoking increases the loss of bone mass that occurs most in old age.
Smoking causes other changes that damage the bone, such as high levels of the hormone cortisol, which eventually lead to bone breakdown. According to Dr. Kaur, the study also shows that smoking damages the hormone calcitonin, which helps build bones. That is, the hormone cannot perform its function.
In addition. Nicotine and free radicals kill the osteoblasts (the cells that produce bone). Smoking causes damage to the blood vessels and causes a poor blood supply of oxygen. Therefore, people who smoke suffer from repeated crises. And research shows that when a smoker suffers a fracture, the fracture does not heal properly because of the poor blood supply.
And now, do you really need a cigarette first thing in the morning?
If you can't stop smoking alone, maybe it's time to seek the help of professionals who can help you get to the point where you'll want to quit smoking and you'll no longer need a cigarette after every meal. Try to take into account the harms of smoking as part of the set of factors.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
One response
The best solution is to stop smoking. The harms of smoking indeed damage many systems in the body and mind and especially develop dependence in the smoker. Many smokers want to quit smoking but fear the side effects and withdrawal symptoms from smoking and especially obesity due to quitting smoking.