Facts about the Harmful Effects of Smoking

Everyone knows that smoking is never a good thing for the body. That is why quit smoking advertisement messages are displayed everywhere, in posters, television commercials, and in health teachings. Being informed on the different harmful effects of smoking may help one decide to finally quit smoking. The following is a list of the bad effects of smoking to the body:

•Smoking always appears as a contributing factor to many of the major diseases affecting the body’s vital organs.

•Tar is the substance responsible for the blackening of a smoker’s fingers as well as staining of his teeth. But in a more important note, tar in cigarettes causes paralysis of the respiratory cilia that leads to the development of the lung diseases emphysema, lung cancer, and bronchitis.

•The smoke of tobacco contributes in the development of most types of cancer.

•Smoking puts the heart in distress because of the increased heart rate due to the combined effects of the cigarette’s carbon monoxide and nicotine

•Aside from heart attacks, cerebro-vascular accidents, better known as stroke, can also develop with smoking as one of its factors. The complications of stroke can lead up to amputation of the extremities due to the lack of blood flow to the body’s tissues.

•When a smoker puffs at least a single pack of 20 cigarettes in one day, the amount of tar he can inhale in a year measures to one full cup.

•Carbon monoxide is a known chemical that can suffocate a person because it chemically reduces the amount of available oxygen. Inhaling large amounts of carbon monoxide can put every tissue in the body hungry for oxygen. This will make the lungs and the respiratory muscles work harder to get more oxygen. The next that can happen is exhaustion and minimal lung expansion.

•Smoking during pregnancy is highly dangerous to the baby. It causes premature babies, low birth weight of babies, and spontaneous abortion. It’s also a major factor of increased perinatal mortality rate.

•Smoking contributes to heart attacks because it causes more fats to deposit along the blood vessels, making them to narrow for the blood to pass through. Sequentially, there will be less bloodflow to the different tissues of the body. This will make the heart pump faster so enough blood can flow for the tissues and this can lead to heart attacks.

Smoking, to sum everything up, can kill. It may be slow but its effects to the body can definitely lead the body to its destruction and death. The first days of quitting smoking may be really difficult but what every suffering people experience as they quit smoking is worth it.