Smoking Effects: Protect Your Lungs And Your Health
Author: Joseph A Gaetan
According to PhysLink.com, when you inhale a cigarette the temperature in the middle of the tip of a cigarette goes from 1100 F. to 1300 degrees F. The tip or combustion zone of a cigarette or cigar produces carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Further back where it is a bit cooler you have the pyrolysis/distillation zone. The distillation zone is where the 5000 or so chemicals are produced and unleashed. As the super saturated vapor cools it is transformed into aerosol particles that form the smoke. Some of the smoke goes directly into your lungs the rest is dispersed as second hand smoke. The smoke that goes into your lungs and into your blood stream causes one set of problems, the smoke that surrounds your lips and wafts across your eyes and complexion causes other problems.
The problem with using disease as a scare tactic or motivator to quit smoking is people don't think that way. They don't walk around all day worrying about all the awful things that can happen. The cause and effect between smoking and disease is too far removed. The ravages of smoking build up, bit-by-bit, day-by-day, cigarette-by-cigarette, until the cumulative affect hits its mark. Almost all smoking related diseases are non-reversible. You may be able to arrest of stop the damage in some cases but often the results of smoking have done irreparable harm to your heart, throat, lungs, eyes, complexion, arteries and circulation. Many people think of cancer when they think of smoking related disease, the degenerative diseases associated with smoking take a subtle toll reducing mobility and quality of life.
Smoking is a time bomb with a variable length fuse; some smokers will live to be 100, while others will perish at 40. Smoking cigarettes is a game of Russian roulette, quicksand, landmines and trip wires because; you never know which cigarette or how many it is going to take to become ill. No one should smoke, but especially those who are predisposed by heredity, or preexisting conditions such as diabetes, circulatory problems, heart disease or elevated cholesterol. The risk factors associated with smoking have been known for years and have been reported by the U.S Surgeon General and others.
Smoking Related Disease and Risk Factors
Smoking harms nearly every major organ of the body, often in profound ways, causing many diseases and significantly diminishing the health of smokers in general. Toxins in cigarette smoke go everywhere the blood flows (1)
Cancer
Smoking causes the vast majority of lung cancers, along with cancers of the mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus, pancreas, kidney, bladder, stomach, and acute myeloid leukemia (1)
Cardiovascular Disease
Smoking is one of the major independent causes of coronary disease. Smoking causes atherosclerosis, strokes, and abdominal aortic aneurysm. It accelerates the progressive hardening and narrowing of the arteries. Cigarette smoke damages the cells lining the blood vessels and heart (1)
Respiratory Disease
More than 90% of emphysema deaths are caused by smoking. Smokers have more upper and lower respiratory tract infections and other respiratory diseases than nonsmokers.
When mothers smoke during pregnancy, it damages their infants' developing lungs (1)
Reproductive Problems
Smoking harms every phase of reproduction
Smoking increases the risk of complications during pregnancy, it raises the risk of premature birth, low birth weight infants, stillbirth, and infant mortality
Infants exposed to secondhand smoke after birth have double the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS (1)
Eye Disease
Smoking is already a known risk factor for age-related macular degeneration, cataract and thyroid eye disease. Now, the first study to specifically examine the impact of smoking on uveitis-inflammation of the eye's middle layer of tissue-indicates that tobacco smoke likely plays a role in this serious eye disease, as well. (2)
The Good News About Quitting and Reducing Risk:
In case you are thinking what's the use you have smoked for too long, don't give up, according to the American Cancer Society:
When smokers quit -- What are the benefits over time?
20 minutes after quitting: Your heart rate and blood pressure drops.
(Mahmud A, Feely J. Effect of Smoking on Arterial Stiffness and Pulse Pressure Amplification. Hypertension. 2003;41:183.)
12 hours after quitting: The carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal.
(U.S. Surgeon General's Report, 1988, p. 202)
2 weeks to 3 months after quitting: Your circulation improves and your lung function increases.
(U.S. Surgeon General's Report, 1990, pp. 193, 194, 196, 285, 323)
1 to 9 months after quitting: Coughing and shortness of breath decrease; cilia (tiny hair-like structures that move mucus out of the lungs) regain normal function in the lungs, increasing the ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs, and reduce the risk of infection.
(U.S. Surgeon General's Report, 1990, pp. 285-287, 304)
1 year after quitting: The excess risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker's.
(U.S. Surgeon General's Report, 1990, p. vi)
5 years after quitting: Your stroke risk is reduced to that of a non-smoker 5 to 15 years after quitting.
(U.S. Surgeon General's Report, 1990, p. vi)
10 years after quitting: The lung cancer death rate is about half that of a person who continues smoking. The risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, cervix, and pancreas decrease, too.
(U.S. Surgeon General's Report, 1990, pp. vi, 131, 148, 152, 155, 164, 166)
15 years after quitting: The risk of coronary heart disease is the same as a non-smoker's.
(U.S. Surgeon General's Report, 1990, p. vi)
(1) The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General, 2004
(2) American Academy of Opthalmology (2010, March 18)
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/quit-smoking-articles/smoking-effects-protect-your-lungs-and-your-health-2023735.html
About the Author
Joseph A. Gaetan Cht, Clt is a certified Master Practitioner of NLP and a certified Words that Change Minds consultant who has spent the last 10 years helping people to quit smoking. Mr Gaetan received formal smoking cessation specific training from reputable organizations in the United States, Canada and the U.K. As a hands on smoking cessation specialist Mr Gaetan has helped thousands of people through the process of quitting and staying quit. Losing two of his family members to the battle against lung cancer propelled Mr. Gaetan to develop an ethical and efficacious program aimed at helping people beat their nicotine dependency.
[TEMPLATE]cannibis[/TEMPLATE]
are the physical effects of finger clubbing reversible?
can this be reversed if the person say stops smoking and have their lungs return to some kind of “normality” what else causes clubbing and how could you find out, thanks.
They may be. If the person’s lungs recover fully, then the clubbing could improve and even reverse. However, if certain underlying conditions remain, the clubbing would probably stay the same. Also, when a person has had clubbing for a long time, the changes can become permanent.
Other causes of clubbing:
Lung diseases
Heart disease
Certain digestive system diseases
Certain skin conditions
Certain cancers
Occasionally, pregnancy
How long could it take to reverse the effects of smoking for 3 months?
I have been smoking 2-4 clove cigarettes a day for most of this summer now (just started smoking this summer). I have just recently quit completely.
Have I screwed myself up too badly by now? Is the damage reversible? The only thing I can really notice right now is like I am really “pent up” and want to smoke another clove, but that could be due to my anxiety/depression problems as well….
If I stop now, will I be ok in the future?
Dude, that’s nothing. It takes years of smoking to effect your life expectancy. The *cloves* are bad news, but you seem to have escaped the lung damage they can cause. The “pent up” feeling and desire to smoke are withdrawal symptoms and will gradually fade. If you do start again, do yourself a favor and stick with regular cigarettes, which are much less dangerous than the cloves.
How does 4 years of smoking marijuana, 3 years of cigs effect a 22 year old males heart and arteries?
and is the damage reversible at this age?
Poorly, obviously.
But its totally reversible, just not easy.
However I can say that dying form lung cancer is possibly one of the worst deaths, its bad, just bad.
If you don’t quit make sure you exercize a lot, and eat right
Are these side effects reversible?
I am a 15 year old male who has been heavily smoking marijuana for about 2 years. Heavily as in 5-7 times a week. Since then, I’ve noticed I have lost my sex drive and I have become impotent. I was wondering if these side effects are reversible or will i permanently be impotent with no sex drive?
It’s hard to say, with over 136 or so chemicals and some of them they don’t even know what it does to the body, you can thank the person that got you on this for your health.
Now, if your serious get off this crap and start living right. Of course it stems your sex drive and you become impudent. Get off it ans se what happens in the weeks or months to come. If nothing happens in the next four months or so you’d better see your doctor, you can have a lowered testosterone or some other hormone loss. You may need supplements. But, you have to be honest with yourself and the doctor.
how long after starting smoking will there be risks to your health, and are the effects reversible ?
I once heard a doctor say that for every month you smoke, it’ll take a year to fully reverse the effects.
A friend of my mums smoked for 15 years, stopped in his 30′s, but then died of lung cancer that was directly related to smoking in his 50′s.
All the effects however, are reversible, just some take longer to go than others.
First and foremost the reason why so many people find it hard to quit is because nicotine is a pain reliever, and the brain stops making it’s own pain releiving hormones because it doesn’t need to anymore. This can take up to 12 weeks to resume, so the first few months will always be the hardest.
Other effects, like the effects of all the carcinogens and other things (mostly banned pesticides, seriously look it up on wikipedia) burning the lungs will take longer to heal.
Basically – smoking is like paying through the nose for someone to kill you really slowly over a period of years from the inside, whilst getting side effects of stinking like a day old bonfire and getting nice black and yellow teeth and eventually, fingertips.