Cigarette boxes always state: “Cigarette smoking is dangerous to your health” at the back of the boxes, or at the end of their commercial ads. But do people really heed these government warnings? Do people really understand what smoking does to them?
In the United States, an approximate of 25.1 million men and 20.9 million women are smokers. It is quite alarming to know that quite a huge chunk of the smoking population belongs to a younger age group. Almost twenty-seven percent of smokers are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. A recent survey showed that almost twenty-three percent of high school students were current smokers, and that most of these high school smokers were White and Hispanic students.
Cigarettes
A cigarette is made out of cured and finely cut tobacco leaves and reconstituted tobacco combined with certain additives rolled and stuffed into a paper cylinder. The act of lighting a cigarette to make for the purpose of inhaling its smoke byproduct is called cigarette smoking.
Cigarette smoking and its effect
Around four hundred forty thousand people die in the United States from any form of tobacco use. Nearly one out of five deaths is linked to smoking, it beats alcohol, car accidents, suicides, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs put together. But how does cigarette smoking kill?
An approximated four hundred chemicals are present in cigarette smoke, and most of them are toxic to the human body. Certain ingredients found in cigarettes may affect as much as the internal functioning of your body organs to the efficiency of your body’s immune system. Continued cigarette smoking may cause a multitude of different medical complications, and at worse, the effects may be fatal. these include:
l Cancer. Cigarette smoking is responsible for at least thirty percent of all cancer deaths in the United States. It is the major cause for these forms of cancer:
lungs
larynx (or the voice box)
oral cavity
pharynx (or the throat)
esophagus
Cigarette smoking is also said to be a contributory factor in developing these forms of cancer:
bladder
pancreas
liver
uterus and cervix
stomach
colon
rectum
l Heart diseases. Cigarette smoke contains very fine particles that penetrate the alveolar wall into the blood and exert their effects on the heart in a short span of time. Among these heart diseases are:
heart attack
stroke
l Lung diseases.
emphysema
bronchitis
l Pregnancy complications.
miscarriage
early delivery (or premature delivery)
still birth
sudden infant death syndrome (or SIDS)
low birth weight
In addition, smoking is not only harmful to your own body. In the long run, it will take its toll on the people surrounding you, through second hand smoke. So if you care about your own health and for others as well, don’t get started with the habit. If you’re a cigarette smoker, try and quit the habit. Your body will thank you for it.