It is never a doubt that at least at one time or the other in our life time or even always we do hear medical experts saying that smoking cigarette is not good for our body.
Not only medical experts, even the government, religious bodies, NGOs all do their best to sensitize people on how bad cigarette is to body. In fact in Nigeria on the pack of all cigarette it's boldly written "THE FEDERAL MINISTRY OF HEALTH WARN THAT SMOKERS ARE LIABLE TO DIE YOUNG". But the funny thing is that, smokers around the world have given deaf ears to all these warnings.
Smoking is really bad for our health, is not only bad to the smokers but also for those staying around them as the smoke (second-hand smokers). About half of cigarette smokers die of tobacco-related disease and lose on average 14 years of life. Cigarette use by pregnant women has also been shown to cause birth defects, including low birth weight, fetal abnormalities, and premature birth.
The World Health Organization estimates that tobacco caused 5.4 million deaths in 2004 and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century.
Rates of cigarette smoking vary widely throughout the world. While rates of smoking have over time leveled off or declined in most developed world, they continue to rise in developing nations.
The question now is DO CIGARETTE SMOKERS KNOW THE DEGREE OF DAMAGES CIGARETTE DO THEIR BODY? The answer is NO. Funnily some smokers of cigarette are hyper-phobic to some diseases of which they are vulnerable to. I can remember some days ago when I told a friend that WHO has classified PROCESSED MEATS carcinogenic, he immediately made a resolution never to eat processed meats again, but funnily he is a cigarette smoker. So you can seen that the issue is that most smokers know how bad smoking is their body. Like this my friend he has high phobia for cancer but he smokes because he don't actually know that smoking cigarette can cause cancer.
In this post I'm going to reveal to you 10 harms which cigarette smoking does to the body.
1. Autoimmune Disease: Smoking can cause several autoimmune diseases, including Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Smoking doubles ones risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis.
2. Cancers: Cigarette smoking is responsible for 90% of lung cancers.
Many chemical compounds in cigarette are carcinogens (they cause cancer). Most them that are carcinogenic are those that produce DNA damage since such damage appears to be the primary underlying cause of cancer, for instances Acrolein, Formaldehyde, Isoprene, Ethylene oxide, Acetyl aldehyde, Acrylonitrile. It also cause cancer in many parts of the body which includes the: lips, mouth, voice box, kidney, bladder, liver, gullet(oesophagus), pancreas.
3. Cardiovascular Diseases: A good number of cardiovascular diseases can be result due to smoking for instance smoking accelerates Atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries which is a process that develops over a long period of time due the deposit of cholesterol and other fats on the arteries, forming plagues which makes the arteries rigid and narrow and when this happens blood clots are likely to be formed.
4. COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease): is the collective term for a group of conditions that block airflow out of the lungs and makes breathing more difficult, for instance: emphysema, and chronic bronchitis. Smoking accords for 80% of COPD cases. COPD usually starts between the age of 37 and 45 when there is a decline in the function of the lungs.
5. Impotence or erectile dysfunction: Male smokers in their 30s and 40s are at an increase risk of erectile dysfunction by 50%. This is because erection can't occur unless blood flow to the penis freely. Smoking can damage the blood vessels and cause them to degenerate. Some harmful chemicals in cigarette like nicotine narrows the arteries that leads to the penis, thus reducing blood flow to the penis making it difficult to achieve erection.
6. Vision: Smoking not good for the eyes. Research has link smoking an increased risk of developing age-related macular degeneration, cataract, and optic nerve damage, all which can lead to blindness.
7. Osteoporosis: Smoking is one the factors that increases risk for osteoporosis a condition in which bones weaken and become more likely to fracture. Bone loss has been found in old men and women who smoke. Smoking from an early age puts women at high risk of osteoporosis. Smoking lowers the level of the hormone oestrogen in a woman's body which can cause the woman to enter menopause earlier, boosting her risk of osteoporosis.
8. Diabetes: Smoking can cause type 2 diabetes and make it hard to control. The risk of developing diabetes is 30%- 40% for active smokers.
9. Leukaemia: Benzene which is one among the harmful chemicals in cigarettes can cause cancer particularly leukaemia in human.
10. Life Duration: Studies has shown that smoking reduces life expectancy by 7 to 8 years. On average, each cigarette smoked is estimated to shorten life by 11 minutes. The number of people under the age of 70 who die from smoking-related diseases exceeds the total figure for deaths caused by breast cancer, AIDS, traffic accidents and drug addiction.
REFERENCE:
http://m.netdoctor.co.uk/health_advice/facts/smokehealth.htm
http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/2344.aspx?CategoryID=53
http://m.cancer.gov/topics/factsheets/cessation
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