The costs of cigarette smoking on human health

In this essay I am going to investigate the costs of cigarette smoking on human health. To do is thoroughly I am going to discuss several issues around this title so that I can produce an accurate conclusion towards the end of this essay. I am going to explore mainly about the physical and financial costs but I will also look into the social and emotional costs a little. To do this I am going to use several sources of three or four types for facts and information on the subject and the topics surrounding it. These will most likely be from the World Wide Web, books from the library, revision books and a scientific magazine.

There are four main dangerous groups of substances contained in cigarette smoke, which are Carcinogens, Tar, Nicotine and Carbon monoxide. Carcinogens damage the DNA of the cells in the lungs, which can eventually lead to lung cancer. Tar coats the lining of the alveoli in the lungs. It slows down gaseous exchange and permanently damages the alveoli. Nicotine is the addictive part of a cigarette, which makes people want to continue smoking. Carbon monoxide combines irreversibly with haemoglobin and prevents it from carrying oxygen.

From these facts and the financial facts, which I’m going to discuss later on in my essay, you can see that there would be several costs that cigarette smoke has on human health. There are the direct costs, such as the treatment of directly contributable diseases, and then the indirect costs such as the financial burden to a smoker due to the addiction.

Since twenty-seven percent of men and twenty-five percent of women smoke in England alone, it would mean there would be a great number of illnesses occurring from smoking cigarettes, which would then mean medical support would be required from services such as the NHS. The NHS has to spend a huge £1.7 billion every year on treating smoking-related illnesses such as lung cancer (a illness which occurs by carcinogens damaging the DNA of the cells in the lungs), heart disease (a illness which is greatly affected by nicotine, which rises blood pressure putting a lot of pressure on the heart as the heart has to push blood quicker around the body), emphysema (a illness which occurs by the walls of the alveoli becoming damaged and resulting into a leak of tissue fluid) and arteriosclerosis (a illness which occurs over a period of many years during which the arteries of the cardiovascular system develop areas which become hard and brittle. Vessels become thickened. There is a loss of elasticity). The treatment therefore works out as costing the NHS £209 per patient, which includes medication and the treatment itself. Despite NHS’ large amount of money spent and effort put in to help smokers and their illnesses, smoking related illness kills more than 90,000 people each year.

Not only does smoking cause major diseases such as the ones mentioned above, it also causes minor diseases too such as coughs and likelihood of infection. Smokers are also more likely to experience shortness of breath after minor exertion.

Here is a list of some minor diseases caused by smoking:

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Here is a list of some minor diseases caused by smoking:

A box of twenty cigarettes costs roughly five pounds, so I calculated that smoking ten cigarettes a day of a twenty box for one year would cost a smoker a large sum of £912.50, which could have been spent on more useful products such as education, house bills and more importantly for health. It would mean he/she could’ve of spent this amount on money on food such as vegetables and good quality food.

As the RNIB website shows good nutrition is very important for both your general and eye health. A good nutrition or healthy diet helps your body to grow, repair, wear and tear, protect against infection and to function properly depending on what type of food you have consumed. A good example of the effects of health on a human is an eye condition called ‘Xerophthalmia’, which is a common cause of childhood blindness in developing countries. ‘Xerophthalmia’ is caused by a lack of Vitamin A in a person’s diet and could be prevented by eating fresh vegetables, fat (animal and plant) and protein.

This therefore shows that smokers would be wasting valuable money on unhealthy cigarettes and would be more likely to lose out on consuming healthy products such as fruits and vegetables.

Since smoking effects and damages various organs of a human body, such as the lungs it would seem that a smoker would find it more difficult to perform his/her job well. In recent studies it has been found that fifty million working days per year have been lost in the UK due to smoking related diseases.

This may be the case because smoking also causes minor illnesses that can affect a smoker in the short-term too. One of these minor illnesses is known to be chest infection. Chest infections are caused by tar, with other substances, which are taken in by smokers damaging the tiny hairs in the lungs called cilia. These hairs are supposed to keep the lungs clean. The damaging of the cilia results in people having chest infections.

Since cigarette smoking harms the body but is also common among most people, I want to compare smoking with a similar substance; which is alcohol drinking. I want to see if there are any links between the two substances, which are both commonly consumed among the UK population.

Scientists carried out a study and they found that both chemicals affect the same protein in the brain, which might explain why alcoholics are also often heavy smokers. At concentrations that make humans drunk, alcohol interferes with the normal activity of many of the brain’s neuronal receptors causing them to have an affect on his/her reflexes.

Recent studies have also shown that men who both drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes were more likely to have a smaller amount of semen, a lower concentration of sperm. However, these semen alterations were present only in men who both smoked and drank, and not in men with one habit but not the other. Dr. Marta Fiol de Cuneo had said that for normally fertile men, the reductions in semen quality are not enough to leave him infertile. However these sperm changes might make the situation worse in men who already have fertility problems.

In conclusion I think smoking has several negative effects on human health. The costs of smoking on human health are financially high, which means that the large sum of money wasted on cigarettes could have been spent wisely on health and healthy food products. But there are also physical, social and emotional costs to be considered. The large amount of chemicals present in cigarettes is horrendous. Cigarette smoking also causes a wide range of diseases that a human would be disadvantaged by, this being short-term and long-term. Smoking also costs the NHS greatly since they have to spend a huge amount of money to help people with smoking related illnesses.

Even though services such as the NHS are striving to help smokers quit smoking, it is very difficult for them to a put a stop to smoking since the nicotine in cigarettes is very addictive making it hard for the smoker to quit once he/she has started.

Bibliography

Charlish, A (1990). Points of View: Smoking. Hodder & Stoughton Childrens Division

Cohen, P (November 1996). New Scientist Magazine. Why you light up when you’re drunk. Magazine issue 2057.

Dawson, B (2003). AS Success Biology. London: Letts

Lawrence, A (1997). Arteriosclerosis. Retrieved on 5th January 2005 from the World Wide Web: .

Odedra, N (July 2003). Nutrition and the Eye. Retrieved on 7th January 2005 from the World Wide Web:

Reuters Health (August 2004). F&S: Effects of alcohol and cigarette consumption on human seminal quality. Retrieved on 7th January 2005 from the World Wide Web:

Richardson, K/Crosier, A (No date) and BMA (No date). The human cost of tobacco. Retrieved on 5th January 2005 from the World Wide Web:

Tiscali lifestyle (No date). How much money have you saved? Retrieved on 7th January 2005 from the World Wide Web:

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