The costs of smoking

2. Carbon monoxide:

• Carbon monoxide is a gas that diffuses across the alveoli and is absorbed into blood.
• In the blood it combines directly with haemoglobin inside the red blood cells and so forms carboxyhaemoglobin.
•  This means that the hemoglobin is stopped from becoming fully saturated and therefore there is less hemoglobin available to carry oxygen (“it carries 5-10% less oxygen” (4)).
• So basically someone who smokes heavily and inhales up to 1/5 of his hemoglobin is combined with carbon monoxide instead of oxygen!
• It also damages the heart because it supplies the heart with less oxygen and more carbon monoxide can harm the linings of arteries. As well as cutting down the amount of oxygen supply in the blood, this gas also makes body cells less able to absorb oxygen from the blood and this affects the brain cells especially.
• Babies born to mothers who smoke tend to be smaller in height than babies of non-smokers, and this is probably because of the effects of carbon monoxide on the baby in the womb.

         

3. Tar:

Tar is a mixture of aromatic substances.” (5). Once tar is smoked it is absorbed by some of the cells in the lungs, especially the ones lining the bronchi

and bronchioles. Normally, these cells form a thin, protective layer. But the tar makes them divide and build up into a thicker layer. Some of these cells may go on dividing, developing into cancer.

Diseases caused by smoking:

• Lung disease:

        Common cause of illness and death in the UK!

• Chronic bronchitis: 

        Tar is an irritant. It makes the linings of the respiratory passages inflamed,         causing chronic bronchitis.

• Emphysema:

        Tar is an irritant. It damages the cilia lining these passages, and causes         extra mucus to be made by the goblet cells. This mucus then goes down         the lungs. Bacteria’s in the mucus cause infection. The person coughs, to         try to move the mucus upwards. But the constant coughing can damage         the alveoli in the lungs. This makes it difficult for the person to get enough         oxygen into their blood. This illness is called Emphysema.

• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD):

        COPD is a mixture of chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

                It is a lung disease in which the lungs are damaged, making it hard to                         breathe. In COPD, the airways-the tubes that carry air in and out of your                         lungs-are partly obstructed, making it difficult to get air in and out.
                COPD is not contagious therefore you cannot catch it from someone else.
                Cigarette smoking is the most common cause of COPD. Most people                         with COPD are smokers or former smokers. Among smokers less air gets                         in and less air goes out because the ingredients in cigarettes damage the                         airways and air sacs and so they lose their elasticity. Also the walls                         between many of the air sacs are destroyed and the walls of the airways                         become thick and inflamed. And Cells in the airways make more mucus                         than usual, which tends to clog the airways.

                In a non-smoker, each airway is clear and open, the air sacs are small and                         dainty, and both are elastic and springy. When you breathe in, each air sac                         fills up with air, like a small balloon, and when you breathe out, the                         balloon deflates and the air goes out.

        COPD develops slowly, and it may be many years before you notice         symptoms like feeling short of breath. Most of the time, COPD is         diagnosed in middle-aged or older people.
        “Britain has the highest death rate from this disease in the world.”(6)

Lung cancer: 

        

Tar is almost always the cause of lung cancer. People who even smoke a         few cigarettes a day are still more likely to get lung cancer than non-smokers; where as heavy smokers are 25 times as likely to get it. In UK, lung cancer is a very common cause of death. Only 0.3% of people with lung cancer are people who have been non-smokers all their lives. The ingredients in cigarettes damage the DNA in the cells lining the respiratory passages. If this damage affects the control mechanism for cell division, then a tumor develops. Lung cancer can usually only be treated if detected early enough, so that the tumor can be removed by surgery. Smoking not only increases the danger of developing lung cancer but also         any other kind of cancer. Many of the chemicals in cigarettes smoke get dissolved into the blood and so therefore can be transported all over the body.

Financial costs:

• Approximately £1.7 billion of our taxes is spent by the National Health Service (NHS) treating diseases caused by smoking. This money could be invested in other services such as education, medical etc.
• Daily about 9,000 beds in hospitals are occupied by people suffering from smoking related diseases.
• Annually 285,000 people are admitted to NHS hospitals to be treated for diseases related to smoking.
• British industry loses at least 50 million working days every year from smoking related sick leave.

All this money and hard work could be saved if some people would quit smoking!!

Debates on smoking:

“The widespread availability of this potentially lethal drug has consequently raised difficult questions about the duties of manufacturers and governments to protect consumers from harmful legal products.”(8)

Ban smoking in public places is a current issue in society and articles are to be read in every newspaper every now and then. There is a high population of people who inhale other people’s cigarette smoke against their will. And it is a fact that a smoker’s quality of life is reduced and life span shortened by smoking. It also true that life’s of many innocent people is harmed through passive smoking. For example, if a baby’s parents smoke 20 cigarettes a day, the child will have indirectly smoked 80 cigarettes by the time he is 1 years old.

“It is estimated that 146 Australians die each year as a result of passive smoking.”(7)

Conclusion:

Being a non-smoker myself, I personally think that the decision taken by the government, to ban smoking in public is a good idea because after all why should I inhale other peoples smoke and ruin my health. There is nothing more disgusting for me than coming home from a club after an evening out and finding that your clothes smell like an ashtray.

Bibliography:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1373/is_5_50/ai_62087852

http://www.s-cool.co.uk/topic_quicklearn.asp?subject_id=3&Topic_ID=21&Quicklearn_ID=3&loc=ql

Books:

Biology- Cambridge by Mary and Geoff Jones

Human Biology AS-Textbook

Referencing:

2. ,(3),(4),(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)