If you came to this article to find reasons to keep smoking … you, my friend, have a problem. Every cigarette you puff is rotting you, inside out.
On World No Tobacco Day, we thought we would give all our readers some interesting facts about smoking. They’re pretty much 8 reasons you should quit now and find a better habit — one that won’t kill you.
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1) Smoking will make you anxious, irritated and depressed
While smoking a cigarette can make you feel energised momentarily, you begin to feel tired as the effects subside. That’s when the crave kicks in, which is no surprise since scientists have found that nicotine is as addictive as heroin, cocaine or amphetamines.
In other words, smoking physically changes your brain and when it stops getting the nicotine it is used to, you may feel anxious, irritable and depressed. A 2015 study conducted by University College London reveals that smokers are around 70% more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety than a nonsmoker.
2) Your heart will be stressed and your blood sticky
One of the leading causes of death in the United States is coronary heart disease which is caused by smoking, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Smoking raises your blood pressure and puts stress on your heart which weakens it and makes it less able to pump blood to other parts of your body. It also makes your blood sticky which is more likely to form blood clots that block flow to your heart, brain and lungs. Smoking lowers good cholesterol levels and raises blood pressure, which can result in stretching of the arteries and a buildup of bad cholesterol (atherosclerosis).
3) Less hair, poor vision and stretch marks ruin your looks
If you are concerned about how you look you should immediately quit smoking because it can not only cause premature thinning of your hair but can also impair your vision besides giving your face wrinkles and stretch marks — the last thing one would want on their face. A 2007 study revealed that smoking causes thinning of hair, even balding in some cases.
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4) Smoking affects your sense of taste and disturbs digestive system
Smoking will slowly kill your taste buds and will depress your appetite so you may not be getting all the nutrients your body needs. A smoker is at great risk of developing oral problems. Tobacco use can cause gum inflammation (gingivitis) or infection (periodontitis). These problems can lead to tooth decay, tooth loss, and bad breath. Further, smoking contributes to many common disorders of the digestive system, such as heartburn and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), peptic ulcers, and some liver diseases.
According to the US National Cancer Institute, tobacco use causes many types of cancer, including cancer of the mouth, esophagus, throat, bladder, kidney, liver, stomach, pancreas, colon and rectum, and cervix, as well as acute myeloid leukemia.
5) Smoking gives you chronic cough
Smokers have a higher risk of developing respiratory infections which cause frequent colds and flu. In a condition called emphysema, the air sacs in your lungs are destroyed. In chronic bronchitis, the lining of the tubes of the lungs becomes inflamed. Over time, smokers are at increased risk of developing these forms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Years of lung irritation can give you a chronic cough with mucus. According to a study, most chronic bronchitis patients are smokers and their coughing is therefore generally attributed to smoking.
6) It damages your ‘identity’
Our bodies are made up of cells which contain genetic material, or DNA, that acts as an instruction manual for cell growth and function and every single puff of a cigarette damages it. When the DNA is damaged, the instruction manual gets messed up and the cell can begin growing out of control. The body tires to repair the damage that smoking does to the DNA, but over time, smoking can wear down this repair system and lead to a cancer. A 2012 research, conducted by US National Cancer Institute, revealed that first few puffs on a cigarette can, within minutes, cause genetic damage linked to cancer.
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7) Smokers are at a higher risk of infertility
Smokers are at a higher risk of infertility and may encounter difficulties in achieving orgasm. While smoking can affect a man’s ability to get an erection due to restricted blood flow, it may also cause a premature menopause to women smokers. It also increases a woman’s risk of cervical cancer. Women smokers experience more complications of pregnancy, including miscarriage, problems with the placenta, and premature delivery. Also, pregnant mothers who are exposed to secondhand smoke are also more likely to have a baby with low birth weight. Babies born to mothers who smoke while pregnant are at greater risk of low birth weight, birth defects, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, most people do not realize that smoking can lead to problems with fertility in both men and women.
8) It gives you cancers of all sorts
The United States National Cancer Institute describes 250 chemicals as harmful out of the 7,000 which are found in tobacco smoke. Of these 250 known harmful chemicals in tobacco smoke, at least 69 can cause cancer. A single cigarette contains over 4,800 chemicals which can cause cancer almost anywhere in your body including, bladder, blood (acute myeloid leukemia), cervix, colon and rectum (colorectal), esophagus, kidney and ureter, larynx, liver, oropharynx (includes parts of the throat, tongue, soft palate, and the tonsils), pancreas, stomach, trachea, bronchus, and lung. Smoking also increases the risk of dying from cancer and other diseases in cancer patients and survivors. If nobody smoked, one of every three cancer deaths in the United States would not happen.
We’ll leave you with the quote by Mark Twain. Can you outsmart Twain?
“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”
The Express Tribune
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