How does your morning usually begin? Is it an aromatic cup of coffee, that fuming on the table? Or perhaps coffee is not the only thing, and there is another one – a not yet lit cigarette in your hand... How nice it is to feel its pleasant glossy smoothness in your fingers. And feel self confidence! Now you make a first fume, and the smoke is in your lungs already. And the morning is getting usual, and it doesn’t matter, that you are going to work or going to do some other useful things. The main thing you already have is your CIGARETTE – The QUEEN CIGARETTE, and how lucky you are to realize, that after all difficult work you can make one or two fumes of that sweet but sinister smoke.
And sometimes you have too much time, which is drugging on monotonously. And then you want to kill it. And your hand is reaching for… What for? Certainly - for a cigarette. And your time flies faster, and you have something to do. The process of waiting goes imperceptibly by. But if you take a serious view of this sort of waiting, what will you see? You think, you are killing the time, but it is your cigarette, that kills you this moment.
Many scientists consider smoking to be a delayed suicide. Smoking is not just a habit, but a certain form of drug dependence. Health hazard caused by smoking doesn’t manifest at once, but cumulates in the course of time. The consequences declare themselves in 10-15 years. The average smoker takes about 200 puffs a day. It makes 6 000 puffs a month, 72 000 a year, and over 2 million puffs for the 45-years-old smoker, who started smoking at the age of fifteen. Like alcoholics, the smokers have the progressing stages of smoking disease.
The first stage takes place, when a person smokes up to one pack of cigarettes a day. Meanwhile he breathes the air, the pollution of which exceeds health standards by 600-1200 times.
On the second stage of nicotine syndrome, when smoking causes a strong addiction, we can see the first signs of organism illness. The smoker indicates discomfort in the heart, pulse and blood pressure surging, heartburn, increased irritability, headache, somnipathy, low physical efficiency etc.
On the third stage the nicotine addicted people need to smoke on an empty stomach and at night. They constantly suffer from continuous dry cough. The serious diseases of cardiovascular, respiratory and digestive systems can declare themselves this time.
It was known long ago, that tobacco is harmful to one’s health. People saw smokers suffering from backbreaking cough and realized it’s hard to breath in the place filled with smoke. Tobacco is scientifically proved to make mental work difficult. The experiments taken on animals confirm the fact: nicotine kills. The legendary phrase “A drop of nicotine kills a horse” appeared that time. To be precise, the drop of nicotine can kill not one but three horses. But smokers only laugh in return: “I must be much stronger, than a horse, if I’m still alive after all nicotine I have got!” They consoled themselves by the idea, that cigarette filter accumulates all tobacco resins.
The physicians have found out: the growing number of smokers increases the number of dangerous diseases. From the beginning of 1960s the newspapers and magazines started publishing the results of scientific research in question. And people got terrified! In comparison with non-smokers the human life is proved to be shortened (upon the average) by 4,6 years, if one smokes 1-9 cigarettes a day; by 5,5 years, if he smokes 10-19 cigarettes; and by 6,2 years, if the daily amount of cigarettes counts 20-39.
How smoking influences human brain
When oxygen substitutes for carbonic acid, the brain starts to suffer from oxygen starvation. Glucose in blood stops to oxidize, its level grows, and brain cells don’t receive signals respond for wakefulness. Due to irregular functioning of the brain the human falls ill with narcolepsy. Cigarette resins increase the amount of free radicals in human brain, and they destroy the brain as well. Even small doses of nicotine reduce mental capacity by 14 and sometimes by 25 percent. The personal degradation takes place. A cerebral stroke is one of possible results for smokers.
How smoking influences the heart
Smoking is the main reason of coronary artery involvement and other cardiovascular diseases. Each cigarette causes palpitation. As a result the smoker’s heart makes additional 12-15 thousand heartbeats a day in comparison with a non-smoker. Extra heartbeats lead to premature wearing of the heart engine. There is a direct connection between smoking and such diseases as myocardial infarction, coronary heart disease and hypertension, proved by scientists. Notice these symptoms: a long episode of acute gripping pain in the center or left part of the chest, collapse, rise of temperature, fear and suffocation. They are caused by smoking.
How smoking influences lungs
According to physicians’ research, the lungs suffer from the consequences of smoking most of all. The smoke gets into trachea and goes through two main bronchial tubes, then enters bronchioles and finally achieves the next human lungs structure – acines. Human respiratory tracts – trachea, bronchial tubes and bronchioles are covered by delicate ciliated epithelium, which ciliates against the air flow. It is the exact place, where the smallest parts of the air and smoke accumulate, and lungs purify themselves.
If the air contains admixtures, they start accumulating in ciliated epithelium and can be removed out of the respiratory tract together with phlegm. Epithelium gathers all bad substances from the smoke. With each next fume the foreign substances get more and more accumulated in one’s lungs. And so on until finally the ciliated epithelium couldn’t cope with all resins, bed in it. From now another defense mechanism comes into operation: a cough. The cough will be repeated again and again, until the lungs will be cleared from dirt. It is a constant cough the common smoker can be recognized by, as his organism tries to get rid of resins and other harmful substances.
All substances contained in smoke, accumulate in bronchial tubes, but ciliated epithelium and cough are not able to clean them all out. Finally these substances irritate the cells of bronchial tubes, bronchioles and alveoli and lead to inflammation.
The more one smokes, the less power has his organism for self-defence. This is a beginning of such diseases as chronic bronchitis, emphysema, attack of asthma, tendency to long-term respiratory illness; the risk of cancer increases by 6 times. Lung cancer, trachea and bronchial cancer, pneumonia, chronic bronchitis, tuberculosis put together an incomplete list of possible smokers’ diseases. The more one smokes, the more is his risk to get ill (it grows by 60-70 percent in comparison with non-smokers). If you constantly suffer from backbreaking cough, blood spitting, repeated pneumonia, bronchitis or pain in the chest, you must immediately give up smoking and visit a doctor.
How smoking influences vision
Tobacco smoke affects organs of vision in a very negative way. The smokers often experience the weakening of the vision, so-called amblyopia, which doesn’t cause any obvious changes in eye-bulbe. The next possible eye affection is a disorder connected with light perception. In some cases smoking can even lead to blindness. The scientists from London Ophthalmology Institute determined, that chances of getting blind to the old age increase by 3 times for smokers. Smoking slows down metabolism in human organism. As a result, microelements useful for the organ of vision don’t reach it. Besides, a smoker’s vision suffers from a lack of blood supply, caused again by smoking.
How smoking influences reproductive system
Smoking has a negative effect on sexual function of men and women. Men experience the decreasing of sexual potency and libido. It is considered, that impotence among smokers increases by 11 percent. Besides the spermatozoid activity of smokers is sufficiently lower, that results in male sterility. The women, smoking 10 cigarettes a day, have a risk of sterility increased by 2 times. If a smoking woman gets pregnant, her chances of abortion is higher, than for women who don’t smoke. Moreover, the smoking women have higher risk to get breast cancer by 4-5 times.
How smoking influences skin condition
The skin of smokers looks dry and grey. This is because of the luck of oxygen. It is noticed, that smokers’ skin gets older very early, especially the skin of the face. Cigarette smoke affects on skin condition as outwardly, getting on open areas of the skin and irritating them by toxic products, so from within by terminating the oxygen access to skin. So-called “the smoker’s face” is a wrinkled face with dry and irritated skin, with wrinkles around eyes and a mouth, dark under-eye circles and bags.
How smoking influences the appearance
Together with “the smoker’s face” accompanied by all the following consequences, the appearance of smokers needs something to be desired. Yellow teeth and fingernails, offensive breath from the mouth and grey wrinkled skin are essential attributes of a smoker. Besides the metabolism of smokers is disturbed, therefore they can hardly control their body’s weight.
Finally we can draw a conclusion, that smoking has nothing but disadvantages. But we shouldn’t give way to despair. There are many methods to give up smoking nowadays. We will talk about them from now on.
How smoking influences human mentality
The investigation taken recently in the United States revealed that people, who suffer from mental disorder, are twice more inclined to smoking than those, who have no mental abnormalities. The research took place at Medical faculty of Harvard University. 4 411 people aged 15-54 years old have been examined during the investigation. The term “mental disorder” was used to wide extent and included any disorders, beginning from delirium and schizophrenia up to alcoholism and drug dependence.
Doctor Wesley Boyd, who was one of the investigators, admits that number of cigarettes smoked by mentally unhealthy people would be less, if there was no alcoholism in the list of mental disorders. “But if we don’t take alcoholism into account, the received numbers impress”, he says.
In the course of investigation called “Smoking and mental disorders” it became evident, that 41 percent of people, who had already had symptoms of mental disease a month before the investigation, were smokers. Among the people without such symptoms only 22,5 percent were smokers. It was also noticed, that people with psychic disorder smoke 44 percent of all tobacco produced in the United States.
Dr. Boyd is sure, that these two factors – smoking and mental disorder – mutually intensify each other. “If you are a smoker, your chance to get neurotic or psychotic syndrome is much higher”, says Dr. Boyd. “And those, who have inclination for mental illness, often become smokers.”
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