What You Need To Know About Smoking

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.
The writer, Abbey Grace Yap, is an active advocate for health consciousness and
disease awareness. She possesses a deep passion in discovering new health-related
information and sharing it to her readers.