I Enjoy Smoking So Why Should I Quit? A Few Thinks You din't Know

Sunday, 17 August 2008
By Clare Innes

Now I know that all of you smokers out there know darned well that smoking isn't good for you, so I'm not going to go on and on about the main problems that smoking can cause you, these things are already well documented, but I will say this; you can eat five portions of fruit and veg a day and exercise regularly, but healthy behaviour means little if you continue to smoke.

People have been very well aware for many years now of the main health problems brought on by smoking. But that said, here are a number of other health issues and facts that many people are simply not aware of:

What a lot of people don't realise is that just one cigarette contains more than 4000 chemical compounds and around 400 of those are actually toxins (poison, to put it plainly). When you inhale on your cigarette, the tip burns at 700 degrees centigrade, whilst the core has a heat of around 60 degrees. What happens here is that the heat breaks down the tobacco to make various toxins, which are then concentrated towards the butt. You receive the worst of the 'poison' as you finish your cigarette.
The most damaging products are:
1) Tar, a carcinogen that causes cancer
2) nicotine is the addictive substance and raises cholesterol
3) carbon monoxide lowers the oxygen in your body

Smoking causes differing levels of damage depending on:
1) The amount of cigarettes that you smoke
2) Whether the cigarette has a filter
3) How has the tobacco been prepared

Although it is well known that smoking kills, what many smokers do not realise is that of the 300 people who die daily in the UK due to smoking, research has now shown that many of them are rather much younger than ever before.

It's almost unbelievable to say, but there are more people under the age of 70 who die from illnesses related to smoking, than of breast cancer, traffic accidents, drug addiction and AIDS combined.

I know you're all going to shout, ah c'mon at this one, but the ugly truth is this...if you started smoking at an early age, smoke more than 20 a day and inhale deeply, the greater your chances of getting lung cancer. It then takes roughly 15 years for your risk of getting lung cancer to drop to that of a non smoker.

Other cancers that are not so publicised are cancers of the mouth. If you smoke the risk is four times that of a non smoker to get cancer on or under the tongue, or on the lips. Another illness that smokers do not tend to be as aware of as lung cancer is COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), for which smoking is responsible for 80 percent of cases.

Emphysema is also a disease caused by long-term smoking, and here are a couple of scary numbers for you. If you smoke 20 a day, when you die and your lungs are examined, you will have a 94 percent chance of there being emphysema present. As a non smoker, however, that percentage drops to 90 who have little or no emphysema at all.

When anyone ages, it is a natural process for their lung function to slowly reduce. However, for a smoker this can be as much as three times faster. Over years, you can expect to become more and more breathless, until needing constant oxygen, hospital care and then death due to slow suffocation...NOT GOOD.

Here's one that I bet you guys didn't know about (at least, not until it was too late!). For men in their 30s and 40s, smoking increases the risk of erectile dysfunction (ED) by about 50 per cent. Erection can't occur unless blood can flow freely into the penis, so these blood vessels have to be in good condition. Smoking can damage the blood vessels and cause them to degenerate; nicotine narrows the arteries that lead to the penis, reducing blood flow and the pressure of blood in the penis.

I can't stress this enough, but this a serious problem for you guys out there, not only for the obvious reason (as I'm sure you are with me there...). If you are a smoker and begin to have problems achieving or maintaining an erection you should go and see your doctor. A problem with the blood vessels in the penis could also mean that damage has been done to vessels in other parts of the body too.

The smoke that you do not inhale and is released from your cigarette between puffs actually carries a higher risk than inhaled smoke. Maybe it's time for a little thought for your non smoking partner, kids, friends, etc., (yeah, I'm trying the guilt trip tactic now).

Kids that grow up in a home with smoking parents are far more likely to have asthma and asthmatic bronchitis. The risk of having generalised allergies is much higher too. Younger babies and toddlers can have chest infections and even cot death.

For adults, passive smoking seems to increase the risk of lung cancer, but the evidence for an increased risk of heart disease is not yet conclusive, but what is certain is that non-smokers and ex-smokers can look forward to a healthier old age than smokers.

So after all this, what is my message? Well I hope to have given you one or two things that you had never thought of before to think about. There are folks out there who love you, and there are 100's of stop smoking programmes to help you too. Go on, give it a go...and stop smoking now!

About the Author:
About the Writer: Clare Innes has a number of lifestyle and fitness sites, including one devoted to how to stop smoking. Look out for more of her lifestyle sites in the 'First For...' series that is presently under development. You can get a unique content version of this article from the Uber Article Directory.