As many people know, smoking is extremely bad for the human body. Smoking causes several diseases, the main disease being lung cancer. There are said to be 69 caner causing chemicals inside a standard cigarette (www.canceresearchuk.org 05/01/2007).
Smoking can cause many diseases, but people still choose to smoke. There is no reason to need to smoke. People who smoke cause people around them to smoke as well without realizing it. The smoke goes down into their lungs and causes build ups of tar around the alveoli and down the airways to the lungs. Tar is a term that describes a collection of solid particles that smokers inhale when they light a cigarette. It is a mixture of lots of chemicals, many of which can cause cancer. (www.cancerresearchuk.org 06/01/2007) Nitrogen oxide can constrict the airway, causing the lungs to do more work than usual. One of the most deadly chemicals for humans is in a cigarette, arsenic. It can cause cancer as well as damaging the heart and its blood vessels. Small amounts of arsenic can accumulate in smokers’ bodies and build up to higher concentrations over months and years. Another of the most dangerous chemicals in cigarette smoke is formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a smelly chemical used to kill bacteria, preserve dead bodies and manufacture other chemicals. It is one of the substances in tobacco smoke most likely to cause diseases in our lungs and airways. Formaldehyde is also a known cause of cancer. It is believed that even the small amounts in could increase our lifetime risk of cancer. Tobacco smoke is one of our major sources of formaldehyde exposure. Places where people smoke can have three times the normal levels of this poison. (www.cancerresearchuk.org) many other chemicals are in cigarette smoke. These chemicals include: benzene, cadmium, polonium, acrolein, chromium, many metals are also present in small quantities; such as nickel, cobalt, lead and beryllium.
