Smoking effecting health

By AzerNews

By Scott Fenwick

B.S. /Hons

[email protected]

Cigarette smoke contains about 4,000 different chemicals, which can damage the cells and systems of the human body. These include at least 80 chemicals (including tar, arsenic, benzene, cadmium and formaldehyde) nicotine (a highly addictive chemical which hooks a smoker into their habit) that can cause cancer and hundreds of other poisons such as cyanide, carbon monoxide and ammonia. Every time a smoker inhales, these chemicals are drawn into the body, where they interfere with cell function and cause problems ranging from cell death to genetic changes, which lead to cancer. This is why tobacco smoking is a known or probable cause of approximately 25 diseases.

According to figures I have researched, smoking is responsible for approximately five million deaths worldwide every year. However it also contributes to, or aggravates many other diseases and may play a part in many more deaths. There are believed to be 1.1 billion smokers in the world, 800 million of them in developing countries.

SMOKING DAMAGE

There are hundreds of examples and volumes of research showing how cigarette smoking damages the body. For example, United Kingdom studies show that smokers in their 30s and 40s are five times more likely to have a heart attack than non-smokers. Smoking contributes to coronary artery disease (atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries) where the heart's blood supply becomes narrowed or blocked, starving the heart muscle of vital nutrients and oxygen, resulting in a heart attack. As a result smokers greatly increase risk of needing complex and risky heart bypass surgery. Smoking also increases the risk of having a stroke because of damage to the heart and arteries of the brain. If you smoke for a lifetime, there is a 50 per cent chance that your eventual death will be smoking-related -- half of all these deaths will be in middle age.

LUNG PROBLEMS

Smoking does enormous damage to the lungs, especially because these tissues are in the direct firing line for the poisons in smoke. As a result there is a huge increase in the risk of lung cancer, which kills more than 20,000 people in the UK every year. US studies have shown that men who smoke increase their chances of dying from the disease by more than 22 times. Women who smoke increase this risk by nearly 12 times. Even more common among smokers is a group of lung conditions called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD which encompasses chronic bronchitis and emphysema. These conditions cause progressive and irreversible lung damage, and make it increasingly difficult for a person to breathe.

YOUNG PEOPLE

Smoking is particularly damaging in young people. Evidence shows that people, who start smoking in their youth - aged 11 to 15 -, are three times more likely to die a premature death than someone, who takes up smoking at the age of 20. They are also more likely to be hooked for life. Nicotine, an ingredient of tobacco, is highly addictive - it takes on average on about six cigarettes before nicotine receptors in the brain are switched on, generating a craving for nicotine, which may continue for the rest of the person's life. In less than one packet of cigarettes, a person's brain can be changed forever from that of a non-smoker to a nicotine addicted smoker.

Although the health risks of smoking are cumulative, giving up can yield health benefits, regardless of the age of the patient, or the length of time he/she has been smoking.

EXERCISE WILL HELP YOU QUIT SMOKING

People, who exercise and try to quit smoking at the same time, are 55 per cent more likely to quit-and 43 per cent less likely to relapse into smoking again.

The study, carried out in Taiwan, examined healthcare data from 434,190 people in order to reach the finding. The study also showed that, for those smokers who did not quit, exercising increased life expectancy by 3.7 years. Those that exercised and did manage to quit saw an increase in life expectancy of 5.6 years.

The Club Port Baku will help you achieve your desired result and support you in your goals. We have daily, monthly, yearly memberships, but, I strongly suggest you take on our life time membership to secure your future health. If you are wondering how much exercise you need to improve your chances of quitting, the answer is 30 minutes per day. I think that sounds like a pretty good deal for 5.6 extra years of life.

Make it happen!!