TOBACCO AND ITS DANGER TO HEALTH
What is tobacco?
Tobacco is an agricultural crop commonly used to make cigarettes, it contains psychoactive ingredient in it called Nicotine, which is a stimulant, a mood-altering drug. Nicotine is the most addictive drug of all. It stimulate the same area of the brain as cocaine and amphetamine . However it contains more than 4,000 other chemicals of which 2,000 are known to be poisonous are present in cigarettes, 69 leads to cancer according to American lung association. Nicotine is extremely habit forming, which is why people find it difficult to quit.
How does tobacco affects the brain?
Tobacco is a nervous system stimulant that triggers complex biochemical and neurotransmitters disruption in the brain cells. When you smoke, nicotine reaches your brain in seconds making you feel more energized for a while , but as the effect wears off, you tend to crave for more.
There is no safe ways of smoking tobacco, either you replaced your cigarette with cigar, pipe, hookah, or smokeless tobacco, it doesn’t help to avoid the risk. Tobacco is very dangerous to health, the substance inhaled doesn’t affect only the lung, but the entire body. The effect of smoking may not be immediate but complication and damage can last for years.
Dangers associated with tobacco smoke
Tobacco smoking has many negative side effects you need to be aware of before using it. There is inherent risks of tobacco since it is a highly addictive substance and can cause huge threat to your health . The effects of tobacco smoke depends on the number of year that a person smoke it and how much the person smoke it. Starting cigarette smoking in earlier life and smoking cigarettes higher in tar increase your risk of diseases listed below
- Cancer: There are several cancer which can occur as a result of long term smoking, these include, cancer of the throat, mouth, esophagus, lungs and stomach.
- Heart and blood vessels problem : Several ingredients of tobacco leads to narrowing of blood vessel and increase the likelihood of blockage leading to heart attack, there is also weakness on the wall of blood vessel in the brain which lead to stroke, other heart problems includes coronary artery disease and angina.
- Loss of sight due to increase risk of macular degeneration
- Women who smoke usually have problems during pregnancy leading to miscarriages, still birth, while during labor they experience premature labor. Their babies are affected as well by having low birth weight, cleft lip and tubal neural defects.
- Tobacco smoking decreases ability to taste and smell.
- Tobacco smoking increases the risk of peptic ulcer and type 2 diabetes (which has been discussed)>>>>
- Infection: Smoking is linked to susceptibility of an infectious disease, particularly of the lungs. It affects the immune system by increasing the CD4+ cell production, which makes you tentatively susceptible to HIV infection.
- Erectile dysfunction: tobacco is the key cause of erectile dysfunction in male. It causes impotence because of the narrowing of blood vessel.
- Smoking is also one of the cause of rheumatoid arthritis.
- Tobacco use is a significant factor of miscarriages among pregnant smokers and it increases the chance of sudden infant death syndrome (see previous post)<<<<<
Seek support from family members, friends and colleagues.
Try join support groups of people who had been addicted to nicotine and has overcome their addiction for advise or smoking cessation program in your community.
- 12 hours of quitting the level of carbon monoxide in your blood drops to normal
- Your blood circulation improves and lung function increases after 2-12weeks of quitting.
- When you quit smoking it cuts down cardiovascular risk after 1 year of quitting and your risk for heart attack drops rapidly.
- Quitting cut down your risk for cancer of the throat, mouth, lungs, and esophagus by half within 5 years.
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