Smoking : uncommon and common effects to our health

More than 1 billion people in this world smoke everyday! That is a huge number. Considering our lifestyle, average life expectancy has fallen to about 60 to 75 years from previous 90 just about a century ago. If you are a smoker, you should know some of the most UNCOMMON facts about smoking. Your life can really get simpler after following this enlightening fact base! But obviously, addicted audience like to turn a blind eye to such blunt list of smoking. To all those non smokers who are tempted to smoke, should read this and put a control on your mind before you take a life changing step! Smoking is bad for health, but it is also a proven fact that smoking of weed has various health benefits. One of the easiest ways to consume weed is using Weed Vaporizer. These are simple to use and convenient enough to be carried around. Cigarettes, on the other hand, have no medicinal value and only contributes to harming the body.

There are various ways to lead a healthy life, and being NOT addicted to something is definitely a good thing!

114 Facts about smoking

• The fact that smoking causes lung disease and oral cancer isn’t exactly news, and only tobacco industry executives would express (feigned) shock at being told.

• Cigarettes can lead to awhole slew of problems involving every system of your tar-filled body, and most people aren’t aware of this.

• The American Council on Science and Health’s book Cigarettes: What the Warning Label Doesn’t Tell You is the first comprehensive look at the medical evidence of all types of harm triggered by smoking.

• Besides cancers of the head, neck, and lungs, ciggies are especially connected to cancers of the bladder, kidney, pancreas, and cervix. Newer evidence is adding leukemia and colorectal cancer to the list.

• Recent studies have also found at least a doubling of risk among smokers for cancers of the vulva and penis, as well as an eight-fold risk of anal cancer for men and a nine-fold risk for women.

• Smoking trashes the ability of blood to flow, which results in a sixteen-fold greater risk of peripheral vascular disease. This triggers pain in the legs and arms, which often leads to an inability to walk and, in some instances, gangrene and/or amputation.

• 76% of all cases are caused by smoking, more than for any other factor, including diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure.

• Smokers are at least two to three times more likely to develop the heartbreak of psoriasis. Even if that doesn’t happen, they’ll look old before their time.

• The American Council tells us, ”Smokers in their 40s have facial wrinkles similar to those of nonsmokers in their 60s.”

• Smokers require more anesthesia for surgery, and they recover much more slowly. In fact, wounds of all kinds take longer to heal for smokers.

• Puffing helps to weaken bones, soft tissue, and spinal discs, causing all kinds of musculo-skeletal-pain, more broken bones and ruptured discs, and longer healing time.

• A non-smoker’s leg heals an average of 80 percent faster than a smoker’s broken leg.

• Smoking is heavily related to osteoporosis, the loss of bone mass, which results in brittle bonesand more breaks.

• Cigarettes interfere with your ability to have kids. “The fertility rates of women who smoke are about 30 percent lower than those of nonsmokers”.

• If you’re an idiot who continues to smoke while you’re expecting — even in this day and age, some people, including stars Catherine Zeta Jones and Courtney Love, do this — you increase the risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, prematurebirth, low birth weight, underdevelopment, and cleft pallet.

• For pregnant women that smoke, If their child is able to survive outside the womb, it will have a heavily elevated risk of crib death (SIDS), allergies, and intellectual impairment.

• Smoking also does a serious number on sperm, resulting in more deformed cells, less ability of them to swim, smaller loads, and a drastic decrease in overall number of the little fellas. The larger population of misshapen sperm probably increases the risk of miscarriages and birth defects, so even if mommy doesn’t smoke, daddy could still cause problems. What’s more, because smoking hurts blood flow, male smokers are at least twice as likely to be unable to get it up.

• Besides shutting down blood flow to the little head, smoking interferes with the blood going to the big head in both sexes. This causes one quarter of all strokes. It also makes these strokesmore likely to occur earlier in life and more likely to be fatal.

• Depression — whether viewed as a trait, a symptom or a diagnosable disorder — is overrepresented among smokers. Unfortunately, it’s unclear how the two are related. Does smoking cause depression, or does depression lead to smoking? Or, most likely, do the two feed on eachother in a vicious cycle?

• Smokers experience sudden hearing loss an average of 16 years earlier than do neversmokers.

• Smokers and former smokers have an increased risk of developing cataracts, abnormal eyemovements, inflammation of the optic nerve, permanent blindness from lack of blood flow, andthe most severe form of macular degeneration.

• Lighting up increases plaque, gum disease, and tooth loss.

• It also makes it likelier that you’ll develop diabetes, stomach ulcers, colon polyps, and Crohn’sdisease.

• Smoking trashes the immune system in myriad ways, with the overall result being that you’remore susceptible to disease and allergies.

• Second-hand smoke has horrible effects on the estimated 42 percent of toddlers and infants who are forced to inhale it in their homes: hundreds of thousands of cases of bronchitis, pneumonia, ear infections, and worsened asthma.

• Because they zap women’s estrogen levels, cigarettes can lead to less endometriosis and other conditions related to the hormone.

• Smoking also decreases the risk of developing osteoarthritis in the knees, perhaps because the pliability of thin bones takes some pressure off of the cartilage.

• Because it jacks up dopamine levels, it helps ward off Parkinson’s disease.

• Based on data collected in the late 1990s, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that adult male smokers lost an average of 13.2 years of life and female smokers lost 14.5 years of life because of smoking.

• Each year, smoking causes early deaths for about 443,000 people in the United States. And given the diseases that smoking can cause, it can steal your quality of life long before you die.

• Smoking-related illness can limit your activities by making it harder to breathe, get around, work, or play.

• No matter how old you are or how long you’ve smoked, quitting can help you live longer and be healthier. People who stop smoking before age 50 cut their risk of dying in the next 15 years in half compared with those who keep smoking.

• Ex-smokers who have quit smoking before age of 50 have fewer illnesses like colds and the flu, lower rates of bronchitis and pneumonia, and feel more healthy than people who still smoke.

• Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) can help with the difficult withdrawal symptoms and cravings that 70% to 90% of smokers say is their only reason for not giving up cigarettes. Using NRT reduces a smoker’s withdrawal symptoms.

• Many smokers can quit smoking without using NRT, but most of those who attempt quitting do not succeed on the first try. In fact, smokers usually need many tries — sometimes as many as 8 to 10 — before they are able to quit for good.

• The best time to start NRT is when you first quit. Many smokers ask if it’s OK to start a program of NRT while they are still smoking. At this time the companies that make NRT products say that they should not be used if you are still smoking, and the FDA has not approved them to be used in this way in the United States.

• Often smokers first try to quit on their own then decide to try NRT a day or more into quitting. This method does not give you the greatest chance of success, but do not let this discourage you.

• You can determine what kind of smoker you are based on how many cigarettes you smoke per day.

• A light smoker is the one who smokes less than 10 cigarettes per day.

• A heavy smoker smokes a whole pack or more in one day.

• An average smoker falls in between the range described above.

• Sometimes a doctor will use the term pack year to describe how long and how much a person has smoked. A pack year is defined as the number of packs of cigarettes a person has smoked every day multiplied by the number of years he or she has smoked. Since 1 pack is 20 cigarettes, a person who has smoked 20 cigarettes a day for a year is considered to have smoked 1 pack year. This is just another way to figure out how high your risk of smoking-related disease might be.

• You can quit smoking with prescription drugs as stated in following points:
• Bupropion (Zyban® or Wellbutrin®): is a prescription anti-depressant in an extended-release form that reduces symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. It does not contain nicotine. This drug acts on chemicals in the brain that are related to nicotine craving. Bupropion works best if it is started 1 or 2 weeks before you quit smoking. The usual dosage is one or two 150 mg tablets per day. This drug should not be taken if you have ever had seizures, heavy alcohol use, serious head injury, bipolar (manic-depressive) illness, or anorexia or bulimia (eating disorders).

• Some doctors may recommend combination therapy for heavily-addicted smokers, such as using bupropion along with a nicotine patch and/or a short-acting form of NRT (such as gum or lozenges). The combination has been found to work better in some people than using any one part alone.

• Varenicline (Chantix®) is a newer prescription medicine developed to help people stop smoking. It works by interfering with nicotine receptors in the brain. This means it has 2 effects: it lessens the pleasurable effects a person gets from smoking, and it reduces the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. Varenicline should be started a week before your Quit Day.

• Several studies have shown varenicline can more than double the chances of quitting smoking. Some studies have also found it may work better than bupropion, at least in the short term. Varenicline comes in pill form and is taken after meals, with a full glass of water. The daily dose increases over the first 8 days it is taken. The dose starts at one 0.5 mg pill a day for the first 3 days, then the 0.5 mg pill twice a day for the next 4 days.

• Reported side effects of varenicline have included headaches, nausea, vomiting, trouble sleeping, unusual dreams, flatulence (gas), and changes in taste. There have also been reports of depressed mood, thoughts of suicide, attempted suicide, and changes in behavior in people taking varenicline. People who have these problems should contact their doctors right away. These side effects may happen to a few people, but most people who take varenicline tolerate it well.

• Smoking delays healing of peptic ulcers of the stomach and duodenum, many of which would heal spontaneously in non-smokers.

• Smoking also brings on an earlier menopause in women, advancing it by an average of 5 years.

• Tobacco smoke is a mixture of gases and small particles made up of water, tar and nicotine. The tar is a messy mixture of hundreds of toxic chemicals, many of which are known to cause cancer (for example, nitrosamines, benzpyrene).

• Many of the gases in tobacco smoke are harmful. These include carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and other toxic irritants such as acrolein and formaldehyde.

• Due to the high temperatures (over 800°C or 1400°F), the burning end of a cigarette is like a miniature chemical factory. It churns out many more noxious chemicals than are found in unlit tobacco or taken in by use of smokeless tobacco (for example, snuff, which contains no tar or gases). Altogether more than 4,000 chemical compounds have been identified in tobacco smoke.

• The chemicals that cause cancer are mainly in the tar. Tar, together with some of the irritant gases, may also be partly responsible for chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Nitrogen oxides are suspected, but the main agents responsible are not yet known. Neither nicotine nor carbon monoxide causes cancer, but they probably work together as causes of the heart diseases associated with smoking.

• After absorption through the lungs, carbon monoxide combines with hemoglobin in the red blood cells and reduces the amount of oxygen they can carry around the body.

• Cigarette smoking makes the blood clot more easily, making episodes of thrombosis more likely.

• Nicotine can cause further problems by upsetting the regular rhythm of the heart.

• Within 48 hours after quitting smoking, blood pressure decreases, pulse rate drops, body temperature of hands and feet increases, the carbon monoxide level in the blood returns to normal, the oxygen level in the blood increases to normal, the chance of a heart attack decreases, nerve endings start regrowing, and the ability to taste and smell is increased.

• Within the first year after quitting smoking circulation and lung function increase, and coughing, sinus congestion and shortness of breath decrease.

• The average yield of U.S. cigarettes is about 12 mg tar, .88 mg nicotine, and 14 mg carbon monoxide.

• Cigarette brands having tar yields below 10 mg are labeled low-tar, and their yields of nicotine and carbon monoxide also tend to be low.

• Only one in five smokers regularly smokes a low-tar brand. Many smokers find them unsatisfying at first and do not persist long enough to get used to them. A few ultra-low yield brands exist (tar below 3 mg, nicotine below 0.3 mg).

• Due to continuous changes in cigarettes over the years and the time taken for smoking-related diseases to develop, it has been difficult to prove that low-tar cigarettes are less harmful. This remains controversial.

• Pipe and cigar smokers who have never smoked cigarettes tend to be non-inhalers and their health risks are not as great as those of cigarette smokers. Due to the stronger, more alkaline smoke and longer periods of puffing, satisfying amounts of nicotine are absorbed slowly through the lining of the mouth and throat. However, their risk for cancers of the mouth and throat are significantly higher than that of nonsmokers.

• Passive smoking is the breathing in of air that has been polluted by other people’s smoke. The smoke and the chemicals it contains remain in the air of a room for many hours, especially if it is poorly ventilated. They can also spread to other rooms.

• The concentrations of some cancer-producing nitrosamines are much higher in the side-stream smoke from the burning end of a cigarette than in the mainstream smoke inhaled directly by the smoker.

• Passive smoking is difficult to avoid completely, and most nonsmokers who are exposed to it have measurable quantities of smoke products in their body fluids. Many nonsmokers find other people’s smoke unpleasant and irritating. It may give them headaches and feelings of hangover.

• The amount of nicotine absorbed by a nonsmoking child whose father smokes is equivalent to the child himself smoking about 30 cigarettes a year; 50 cigarettes a year from a mother who smokes, and 80 cigarettes a year if both parents smoke.

• A nonsmoker who spends about four hours in a smoky room may absorb the equivalent of one cigarette.

• Nonsmoking women whose husbands smoke have a 50% increase in their risk for lung cancer.

• Secondhand smoke causes about 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmokers.

• Young children are especially vulnerable and have an increased risk of coughs and chest and ear infections if their parents smoke.

• The smokers cough. If you have smoked for any length of time you will have the smokers cough. You may think this is an inconvenience if your a smoker, and most smokers try to hide it. This cough is actually your body trying to get rid of the poisonous fumes you are inhaling on a daily basis. It is the sound of your lungs expelling all the chemicals in tobacco smoke. This is a good thing for your body all though you may not think so.

• If you quit smoking, In 20 minutes your blood pressure will drop back down to normal.

• If you quit smoking, In 8 hours the carbon monoxide (a toxic gas) levels in your blood stream will drop by half, and oxygen levels will return to normal.

• If you quit smoking, In 48 hours your chance of having a heart attack will have decreased. All nicotine will have left your body. Your sense of taste and smell will return to a normal level.

• If you quit smoking, In 72 hours your bronchial tubes will relax, and your energy levels will increase.

• If you quit smoking, In 2 weeks your circulation will increase, and it will continue to improve for the next 10 weeks.

• If you quit smoking, In 3 to 9 months coughing, wheezing, and breathing problems will dissipate as your lung capacity improves by 10%.

• If you quit smoking, In 1 year your risk of having a heart attack will have dropped by half.

• If you quit smoking, In 5 years your risk of having a stroke returns to that of a non-smoker

• If you quit smoking, In 10 years your risk of lung cancer will have returned to that of a non-smoker.

• If you quit smoking, In 15 years your risk of heart attack will have returned to that of a non-smoker.

• Hair Loss: Smoking weakens the immune system, leaving the body more vulnerable to diseases such as lupus erythematosus, which can cause hair loss, ulcerations in the mouth and rashes on the face, scalp, and hands.

• Cataracts: Smoking is believed to cause or worsen several eye conditions. Those who smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day are twice as likely to develop cataracts, a clouding of the eye’s lens that blocks light and may lead to blindness. Smoke causes cataracts in two ways: By irritating the eyes and by releasing chemicals into the lungs that then travel up the bloodstream to the eyes.

• Skin cancer: Smoking does not cause melanoma (a sometimes deadly form of skin cancer), but it does increase your chances of dying from it (this may be because smoking impairs the immune system). And smokers have a 50 percent greater risk of contracting squamous cell carcinoma–a cancer that leaves scaly, reddish eruptions on the skin.

• Cigarettes made by the US company Marlboro contain a significantly higher level of a cancer-causing chemical than most other foreign brands, US scientists say.

• Air pollution (PM 2.5) averaged 317 ug/m3 in smoking workplaces, and 36 ug/m3 in smokefree workplaces (89% less).

• Air pollution (PM 2.5) averaged 261 ug/m3 in smoking restaurants, and 36 ug/m3 in smokefree restaurants.

• Air pollution (PM 2.5) averaged 494 ug/m3 in smoking bars, and 28 ug/m3 in smokefree bars.

• in the U.S, air pollution (PM 2.5) averaged 265 ug/m3 in smoking workplaces., and 22 ug/m3 in smokefree workplaces.

• The” Air Quality Index” classifies PM 2.5 levels above 65 ug/m3 as UNHEALTHY, above 150 ug/m3 as VERY UNHEALTHY, and above 250 ug/m3 as HAZARDOUS.

• To protect public health, the US EPA has set a limit of 15 ug/m3 as the average annual level of PM 2.5 outdoors. In September 2006, the EPA lowered the limit for average daily level of PM 2.5 from 65 ug/m3 to 35 ug/m3 .

• Tobacco is “a poison that is more dangerous than hemlock, deadlier than opium. . . . Assuredly, when [people] try it for the first time, [they] feel an uneasiness that tells us that we have taken poison.”

• Saying “’It is nothing but a cigarette,’ is really, ‘It’s nothing but poison.’”

• A person who smokes forty cigarettes daily absorbs nearly a pound of nicotine annually. This is enough to kill at least eight thousand cats. It is a poison whose toxic effects are manifested in every organ and part of the body. It does interfere to a considerable extent with all his (the smoker’s) mental and physical activities and detract appreciably from his usefulness and the pleasures of life.

• The danger cigarettes . . . pose to health is, among others, a danger to life itself . . . a danger inherent in the normal use of the product, not one merely associated with its abuse or dependent on intervening fortuitous events.

• Smokers’ typical inability to comprehend such basic mathematical facts connotes acalculia, inability to do simple mathematical calculations of risk. For example, notice that cigarettes’ carbon monoxide emission is at 42,000 ppm. But they are not safe above about 50-200 ppm (the numbers vary over the years, by duration of exposure, etc.). Those numbers are always far under 42,000.

• The danger continues to increase even after the cigarette is put out, as the toxic chemicals continue to interact.

• People who have been poisoned with gas can at once detect the presence of an extremely small proportion of carbon monoxide in the air and, in general, are exceptionally sensitive to all harmful gaseous substances. They also become very sensitive to tobacco smoke. I have been told by many who were poisoned with gases during the war, that now they positively cannot endure tobacco smoke.

• Hallucinogens function on the brain, adversely impacting it, by impact on brain chemicals such as serotonin. One result of an altered serotonin level is smokers’ disproportionately increased suicide rate.

• The fear of dying is what leads a lot of people to stop smoking cigarettes.

• Australian cigarettes contain about 20 percent of the nitrosamine content of U.S. cigarettes, making the chemical a prime suspect.

• The more you smoke, the more you want to continue to smoke. Your body becomes physically dependent on the drug and begins to crave it.

• Hydrazine (also present in a ciggie) is a chemical used in jets and rocket fuel.

• Sometimes, people think that it is popular to smoke. Sometimes peers try to get you to smoke with them. You don’t always have to say yes ­ even if you think you will be popular.

• Nicotine withdrawal symptoms vary from person to person. The symptoms peak around the second or third day after quitting and then level off. Your nicotine withdrawal symptoms may include: Increased appetite, Cough, Sweating, Muscle aches and cramps, Constipation or diarrhea, Nausea, Headache, Sleep disturbances, Weight gain, Irritability, Anxiety, Depression.

• There is only one reason people smoke, it’s because they are addicted. However, there are many triggers that will help put the next cigarette in a smokers mouth: Working under pressure, Feeling depressed, Talking on the phone, Drinking alcohol, Watching TV, Driving, After a meal, Playing cards, Drinking Coffee, Watching someone else smoke.

• There are a wide variety of feelings associated with the actions to quit smoking. Many times irritability plays a major role in withdrawal from cigarette smoke, which can lead to resentment and anger.

• Instead of letting your withdrawal get the best of you right after a meal (When most people light up) try replacing the cigarette with something else like doing the dishes or taking a walk, whatever works best for you.

• Keep a “Quitting Smoking” journal which you commit to writing in daily, a place to release some anger and put it into words. It is a great way to get rid of unwanted feelings, and a great way to document your life changing struggle and successes that can be looked upon for the rest of your life.

• Try something new! Introduce something into your life that you have an interest in like joining a softball team, fishing, or even basket weaving. Good success has been mentioned by people who started using a vaping bubbler right as they were trying to quit, staying away from combusation is good when trying to avoid that addiction. When you make the decision to quit smoking, you make a decision to change your life so bringing something new to the table will not only help you quit but will enable you to make sure your habits have changed and you will stay smoke free.

• Although weight gain can have an impact on your health, it can be a small price to pay for quitting smoking. There are things you can do while quitting that will help reduce the risk of weight gain altogether.

• Make sure to make exercise a part of your daily life. Simply walking or going for a swim will help keep you fit, and help limit the urge to smoke?

• Smokers often acknowledge that if they quit smoking, they don’t know what they will do with their hands instead!

Thats the end for some of the uncommon facts about smoking. Hope this article has helped enlighten some of you, and also I hope that the non smokers, who are tempted to smoke will think properly before holding the butt in your hands!

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