Smoking Health Risks
Smoking Health Risks Are Many, Smoking Benefits Do Not Exist
When considering the effects of smoking, health risks should be the very first thing that springs to mind. There are so many eminent dangers involved with the use of tobacco, from heart and lung disease to digestive tract issues, to fatal emphysema and asthmatic episodes. For those who have been lucky enough to avoid the addiction to smoking, health risks are still possible should second hand smoke become an issue. The class A carcinogens present in smoke and its remnants are capable of causing a great number of cancers in children, young adult, and senior citizens alike. Take a few moments to consider what happens each time you take a lighter to that tiny, filtered nicotine stick.
From the very first puff, your heart rate increases up to 30 percent. As the “clean” smoke scratches past your vocal chords, down your esophagus, and into your lungs, the harsh ammonia and bleach additives open the tiny, delicate ventricles, allowing the nicotine, tar, and toxic chemicals to seep immediately into the bloodstream. As you continue smoking, health risks and repercussions begin to increase. Your breathing becomes labored and short, as does the blood flow throughout your body. This means that your organs and your extremities are not receiving the oxygen that they so desperately need. Circulatory disease is nearly unavoidable, and can cause ulcers and gang green.
You aren’t quite convinced that any of this is going on, because you are still working and eating and laughing, you are still functioning quite well even despite the smoking. Health risks are the last thing on your mind while you have the last smoke of the day, but your body is trying to tell you that it doesn’t agree. Your lungs spend every second of their time trying to clean the chemicals, soot, and mucus out of your body. It doesn’t belong there, and they know it. Each cigarette you smoke backs up the healing and cleaning process by two or three days, and as the years wear on, the build up inside piles. Your lungs grow darker and more susceptible to disease, your heart is not pumping blood efficiently even though it has to work twice as hard.
One of the most fearful smoking health risks is, of course, cancer. Smoking doesn’t only cause lung, throat, and mouth cancer. Your entire body is affected by the poisonous chemicals delivered by cigarette smoke, and none of your organs are excluded from the risks. One in five deaths in the United States each year is caused by smoking related complications and disease, including an estimated 430 victims of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Why wait until you have to deal with tragedy? Quitting is hard enough without the worry of health issues on top of it.