Over the last two decades, people have woken up to the dangerous ill-effects of smoking and several legal restrictions have also been brought in. But how does smoking harm me?
Cigarette smoke contains about 7000 chemicals. Several hundreds of these are toxic! The smoke contains poisonous gases like Hydrogen Cyanide and Carbon Monoxide. 70 constituents in cigarette smoke have been identified as carcinogenic, for example, Formaldehyde and Benzene. It has a particulate matter(PM) concentration that is a few lakh times the most polluted cities in the world!
When you smoke, these chemicals enter the lungs and then through the lungs, enter the bloodstream. The blood carries them to different parts of your body. The body is forced into fighting these toxic chemicals every time you smoke. The constant stress of this, over a period of time, leads to various diseases. The damage is also immediate.
The exposure to temperatures close to a 1000 degrees centigrade on the tip of the cigarette, repeatedly over a period of time, can contribute to the risk of oral cancer.
The Carbon Monoxide produced in the smoke competes with the Oxygen for Haemoglobin and therefore restricts the levels of Oxygen in your bloodstream. At the same time, the blood vessels also get constricted due to the smoke. The presence of nicotine increases the tendency of the blood to clot. Smoking can also cause a build-up of plaque inside the arteries, further restricting the flow of blood.
All of this can severely restrict the blood flow to the brain and the heart leading to strokes or heart attacks.
A prolonged exposure to tobacco smoke can cause a change (mutation) in the somatic DNA. This mutation can result in the growth of cancerous cells. More dangerously, the smoke also inhibits the ability of your immune system to fight the cancerous cells and inadvertently helps in the growth of tumours. Research has also attributed smoking as a risk factor to cancers of the larynx, oesophagus, stomach, pancreas, blood, bone marrow, cervix, kidneys and more.
Your lungs are supposed to expand and compress when you breathe in and out. But evidence suggests that smoking reduces the elasticity of the lungs leading to long standing lung complications like COPD, Bronchitis and Emphysema. 80% of lung cancer patients are also typically smokers.
Smoking and even second-hand smoke can have a massive impact on fertility in women. Smoking is associated with infertility, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, and early onset menopause. Smoking while pregnant puts both mother and child at risk, increasing the chances of sudden infant death syndrome(SIDS), stillbirths and the child being born with birth defects.
Despite all these serious issues that stem directly from smoking, there is still a significant rise in the number of people who smoke, and many smokers find it hard to quit. What makes smoking so addictive? We will talk about that in another article…
Reviewed by- Dr. N. Nayak, MBBS, MD
Image Source: Photo by Luka Malic on Unsplash
