How Smoking Affects Your Body
First of all, you’re always at risk for any type of cancer. With smoking, you increase your chance of getting cancer tenfold. Smoking also causes gum disease, bad breath, tooth decay, and yellowed fingers. Lack of oxygen to the brain may cause strokes. (2) As you breath in, smoke passes through your bronchial tubes. Chemicals in the smoke, such as Hydrogen cyanide, start to attack the lining of these tubes, causing them to become inflamed. Smokers are approximately 10 times more likely to contract lung cancer than non-smokers.(3) Your lungs aren’t the only things affected when you smoke. Nicotine found in cigarette smoke raises your blood pressure and makes blood clots more common. Carbon Monoxide steal oxygen from blood and leads to the creation of cholesterol buildup on the walls of your arteries, increasing your chance for a heart attack.
Second-Hand Smoke
Not only are you harming yourself when you smoke, but you are harming others around you and the surrounding environment. In fact, it’s common knowledge that secondhand smoke is more lethal than the act of smoking itself. After one inhales, the chemicals are then expelled into the surrounding environment. The second party, in turn, is then exposed to the lethal toxins of secondhand smoke. Also, the expelled toxins are released into the natural environment, polluting it.
Anti-Smoking
The good news is, the desire to quit smoking comes earlier than ever before. This is due to the 1964 surgeon general’s report. After this report was released, more than 30 million people in the U.S quit smoking.(5) Another 30 million people in the U.S say that they would like to quit smoking, but cannot, due to a cigarette’s main addictive substance, nicotine. In a 1988 surgeon general’s report, it was stated nicotine to be” an addictive drug comparable to other addictive substances in it’s ability to deduce dependence.(6)
Conclusion
In conclusion to my report, it is apparent that smoking is greatly hazardous to your health, along with the health of the other people to whom your cigarette poses a hazard. If you have not started smoking, and don’t plan to, good for you. If you are already a smoker, it is highly recommended that you quit now. The sooner you quit, the more time the body has to repair the damage smoking has caused. (7) Think of all the people who’s health you saved by making that one simple decision which will change your life for the better.
