How Smoking Affects Your Body – Part 1  We’ve all been told a million times before that smoking is bad for us and will give us cancer but does anybody really know how lethal smoking can be? Go on, own up, I bet you didn’t know that there's practically not a part of your body that won’t be affected if you smoke. You see it’s those chemicals we talked about earlier that get to you. Of the 4,000 chemicals that are found in cig smoke, 60 have been linked to cancer/cancer forming tumours. Of these Tar, which is made of the gas carbon monoxide and particular substances including nicotine, is seen as one of the most deadly and dangerous. I bet you wouldn’t usually dare no go near these toxic substances let alone put them in your body if you weren’t smoking. This stuff will mess your body and health up no end. Don’t believe me? Well let's take a tour of your body to look at how smoking affects it, starting with your head and your lungs.
Your Head:  If you smoke you're at risk of getting cancer of the mouth, which is very nasty. The smoke from tobacco can cause your teeth to turn yellow and decay, cause gum disease and not to mention make your breath absolutely reek. Smokers often experience intense and frequent headaches, plus a direct affect of smoking is that blood vessels to the brain are narrowed; meaning oxygen can’t get to the brain so easily, which may lead to a stroke.
Your Lungs:  First thing first, smoking does cause lung cancer, it’s the disease that is most commonly associated with smoking but you can get it if you don’t smoke. BUT smokers are 30 times more likely to get it than non-smokers. Lung cancer can be caused by deadly substances called carcinogens in cigarettes triggering something in the body called oncogenes, which causes an uncontrollable growth or cells leading to cancer.
Smoking, even one simple fag will damage your lungs. Smoking also gives you more than just lung cancer…why? Well the smoke, which contains toxic chemicals, goes down the chest and into the lungs, affecting the breathing tubes called the trachea and bronchi and the important breathing sacks called the alveoli. It damages the lungs’ defences by burning the cleaning hairs, called cilia, and affecting mucus and macrophages, which usually get rid of harmful gunk.  The smoke contains tar, hydrogen cyanide and other nasty chemicals, which amongst other things causes that dreaded smokers cough after a period of regular smoking. This is because the chemicals inflame the lining of the bronchioles, which also weakens them so they’re more prone to infections such as bronchitis. This, coupled with continued smoking, and not to mention all the defence systems being knackered, will lead to your lungs making more, thicker mucus, which means infection will frequently come back, each time stronger and stronger. Eventually it will lead to emphysema, where air is stuck in the alveoli and you can’t breathe easily due to being continually short of breathe.
If you or anybody you know are having problems with smoking try the following places for help and support @ the Addictions Links Page. Read:
by ChrisM
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