Cigarette Smoking Health Risks - Quit Smoking
Each year more than 400,000 Americans and 120000 Britons die from a tobacco-related illness. Smoking is the number two preventable cause of death in the United States after obesity. More lives are lost to tobacco than those caused by fires, alcohol, suicides, car accidents, AIDS, illegal drugs, and homicides, combined. Most of these deaths occur in adulthood, but the damage begins at the onset of smoking which in about 90 percent of the cases, begins at or before the age of 18.
Cigarettes are designed as nicotine dispensing machines. Only a portion of the tobacco inside a cigarette comes from the leaf of a tobacco plant. A significant amount of the shredded brown innards of most modern cigarettes is a paper product called "reconstituted tobacco" or "homogenized sheet tobacco," which is made from a pulp of mashed tobacco stems and other parts of the tobacco leaf that would otherwise go to waste. Manufacturers spray and impregnate reconstituted tobacco paper with nicotine and other substances lost during the process, along with as many as 600 chemical additives. These include several that may come as a surprise, such as ammonia, which aids in the delivery of nicotine, and chocolate, which masks the bitter taste of tobacco. Finally, the 'recon' is sliced to resemble shredded leaf tobacco. See our page on what's in a cigarette which is here
Apart from the nicotine and tar in cigarettes, the modern cigarette contains as many as four thousand chemicals that are harmful to the body. Some of the 400 really detrimental ones include:
- cyanide
- benzene
- formaldehyde
- methanol (wood alcohol)
- acetylene
- ammonia
Cigarettes burns at 700 degrees Celsius at the tip and around 60 degrees in the core. This heat breaks down the tobacco to produce various poisons. As a cigarette burns, the residues are concentrated towards the butt.
Smoking puts you at much greater risk for heart disease, poor circulation, high blood pressure, cancer, impotence, high cholesterol and emphysema. Smokers find it hard to compete because of the physical effects of smoking: rapid heartbeat, decreased circulation, and shortness of breath. Smokers are far more susceptible to colds, flu, bronchitis, and pneumonia.
Please read our page on quitting smoking which is here.
Smoke Free Kids
Net Doctor UK
Back to all about smoking
|
