Quit smoking. Quit smoking.

The Harmful Effects Of Smoking

Over the years, the prevalence of smoking has become alarming. Yet, regardless of how it is smoked, tobacco is highly dangerous to your health. In fact, it is no stretch to affirm that you can never find safe substances – for your health – in any tobacco products.1 This ranges from nicotine and tar to acetone and carbon monoxide. Besides affecting your lungs, these substances can impact your entire body.

It should be stressed that smoking can result in a wide range of health complications. Even though some of the adverse effects of smoking 2are immediate, others can raise the risk of chronic diseases over the long term. For this reason, it is imperative to learn about the harmful effects of smoking – both in the short- and long-term. Fortunately, this guide will explain more about this.

Smoking and Cardiovascular Disease

It has been well-documented that smokers are at greater risk for diseases that can affect the heart adversely, as well as blood vessels. Besides this, smoking can result in stroke and all forms of coronary heart disease, which are among the leading causes of death across the far reaches of the globe.

Even people who are used to smoking fewer than 5 cigarettes a day are at a high risk of cardiovascular diseases.3 Smoking is capable of damaging blood vessels, which can make them thick and narrower. This can force your heart to palpitate, and in the process, raise your blood pressure.

A stroke occurs whenever a clot blocks the blood flow to some parts of your brain. As a result, the blood vessels in or around your brain can burst. Obesity is related to many chronic cardiovascular diseases. 4While many smokers are more likely to achieve weight loss, it nonetheless represents a bad way of getting rid of excess fat. After all, going through certain reviews, including Goketo gummies reviews, can expose you to the best keto pills that can help you get rid of obesity and maintain a healthy weight.

Smoking and Respiratory Disease

One of the most obvious adverse effects of smoking is on the lungs. Smoking is capable of damaging your airways, as well as your alveoli, which are found in the lungs. The various chronic lung diseases5 that are caused by smoking include bronchitis and emphysema. Most cases of lung cancer are a result of cigarette smoking. For asthmatic patients, attacks can be triggered – or made worse – by tobacco smoke. It has been suggested by studies that smokers are about 12 to 13 times more likely to die from COPD than nonsmokers.

Central nervous system

Nicotine is a mood-altering drug that is an active ingredient in tobacco. What this does is that it makes its way to your brain within seconds and ensures that you feel more energized – albeit, for a short while. However, as the effects start wearing off, you feel more lethargic.

Nicotine can be addictive, which is the main reason why many people often find it difficult to quit smoking. Your cognitive functioning can be impaired by physical withdrawal from nicotine.6 This can also result in irritation, anxiety, headaches, depression, and sleep problems.

Digestive system

The risk of mouth, throat, esophagus and larynx cancer can be raised significantly by smoking. Smokers are more susceptible to pancreatic cancer. Even those who don’t smoke, but ingest this harmful smoke by being exposed to secondhand smoke face an increased risk of mouth cancer.7 

Insulin can also be affected by smoking. This makes it possible to develop insulin resistance8. This increases the risk of developing type-2 diabetes, 9as well as other related complications, which are more likely to develop at a faster rate than in non-smokers.

Conclusion

Smoking is very bad for the body. After all, tobacco contains harmful ingredients that can damage many parts of the body system while causing several chronic diseases.

Shocking Statistics About Smoking You Need To Know
Icy Health
  1. Hammond, David. “Health warning messages on tobacco products: a review.” Tobacco control (2011). ↩︎
  2. Gajdos, Csaba, et al. “Adverse effects of smoking on postoperative outcomes in cancer patients.” Annals of surgical oncology 19 (2012): 1430-1438. ↩︎
  3. Van der Kooy, Koen, et al. “Depression and the risk for cardiovascular diseases: systematic review and meta analysis.” International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry: A journal of the psychiatry of late life and allied sciences 22.7 (2007): 613-626. ↩︎
  4. McDermott, Mary McGrae. “The international pandemic of chronic cardiovascular disease.” Jama 297.11 (2007): 1253-1255. ↩︎
  5. Seeger, Werner, et al. “Pulmonary hypertension in chronic lung diseases.” Journal of the American College of Cardiology 62.25S (2013): D109-D116. ↩︎
  6. Jackson, K. J., et al. “New mechanisms and perspectives in nicotine withdrawal.” Neuropharmacology 96 (2015): 223-234. ↩︎
  7. Moore, S. R., et al. “The epidemiology of mouth cancer: a review of global incidence.” Oral diseases 6.2 (2000): 65-74. ↩︎
  8. Wilcox, Gisela. “Insulin and insulin resistance.” Clinical biochemist reviews 26.2 (2005): 19. ↩︎
  9. Buijsse, Brian, et al. “Risk assessment tools for identifying individuals at risk of developing type 2 diabetes.” Epidemiologic reviews 33.1 (2011): 46-62. ↩︎

Last Updated on by Sathi Chakraborty, MSc Biology

Author

Icy Health Editorial Team

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *