Why Is Smoking Bad For You?

Although legal and widely used by consumers, tobacco remains an unhealthy and very dangerous drug. Thousands die each year as a result of smoking. Whether smoking cigarettes, pipes, or cigars, the combined side effects of nicotine, plus other gases that enter the lungs when you smoke, greatly increase your risk of developing health complications and diseases. 

A cigarette is packed with about 4000 different compounds, most of which are toxic and which may cause severe damage to your cells. Some of these components are known to be carcinogenic or cancer-causing.  The three main components of a cigarette are nicotine, carbon monoxide, and tar:

• Nicotine is actually non-carcinogenic. However, it is a fast-acting drug that is highly addictive. Once you inhale it, the nicotine can reach your brain within 15 seconds or less. Smokers get hooked to the habit because they become addicted to the nicotine and begin to crave smoking to feed their addiction. This is the main ingredient that keeps smokers constantly buying smokes, and this is what’s keeping the tobacco industry alive.
• Carbon monoxide, on the other hand, is an odorless and tasteless poisonous gas. It is absorbed by your bloodstream and can quickly impair your breathing. This is the same gas that is emitted by vehicle exhausts, fires, and boilers. Inhaling too much of it causes coma and even death. 
• Tar is a substance that is composed of several other chemicals, most of which are carcinogens. About 70% of tar in cigarettes gets deposited to your lungs.

Other Health Risks of Smoking

For men who are in their 30s and 40s, smoking can increase the risk of erectile dysfunction by about 50%. Smoking causes damage to the blood vessels and in effect will cause them to degenerate. Nicotine causes the narrowing of the arteries that lead to the penis. This reduces the blood flow and blood pressure in the penis.

Smoking is also a contributing factor in cosmetic problems such as yellow or stained teeth, early wrinkles around the mouth area, bad breath, yellowing of nails, and skin discoloration. Smokers are also three times more vulnerable to losing teeth than nonsmokers.

Smoking generally reduces the supply of oxygen to the heart. This increases the risk of developing high blood pressure, blood clotting, and high cholesterol.

Smoking induces the early occurrence of back pain, cataracts, stroke, and miscarriage. It also causes prolonged labor in pregnant women and may cause premature delivery of newborns.  Babies who are born to mothers who smoke may suffer SIDS or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Some may even develop behavioral problems in their early childhood teenage years.

Smoking Statistics

Just look at the death statistics associated with smoking:

• The number of those who are under 70 years of age and die from smoking-related illnesses actually exceeds the total number of deaths brought about by AIDS, breast cancer, drug addiction, and traffic accidents.
• Smoking causes 9 out of 10 cases of lung cancer. It is also a proven risk factor for cancer of the kidneys, cervix, bladder, throat, esophagus, mouth, stomach, pancreas, and certain types of leukemia. In other words, smoking is also the biggest and most avoidable risk factor for cancer.

Second Hand Smoke

When you smoke, you are not only doing harm to your body, but the secondhand smoke poses a threat to others as well. When inhaled, secondhand smoke can cause the same health risks faced by a person who smokes. Emphysema, heart disease, and lung cancer are caused by secondhand smoke.

Second hand smoke inhibits growth and development in children and may trigger asthma and other respiratory problems as they grow older. Children that are constantly exposed to smoke tend to have underdeveloped lungs, and they are also two to four times more likely to develop allergic reactions and asthma than those children who are not exposed to smoke.

Smoking is obviously bad for you. Stopping smoking or resisting picking up the habit in the first place is the single best thing you can do to improve or maintain your health.