Harmful Smoking Effects

Smoking causes more damage to your body than you’d like to admit. The dangers to your health are the very reasons why you should quit now – not later, because there might not be a later. Smoking is a traitorous habit. It gets you hooked and kills you. If you think your puffing is harmless, think again. Read on and find out about the many harmful smoking effects.

Hundreds of thousands of people the world over suffer from complicated diseases due to smoking. Statistics show that out of two lifetime smokers, one will die from the nasty habit; out of five people, one will fall victim to heart disease caused by smoking; and out of four early deaths in young people suffering from heart disease, three will die because of smoking addiction. These numbers should tell you to quit smoking now, lest the harmful smoking effects hit you, too.

It has been proven that heart disease and stroke are both more common in people who smoke than in people who don’t smoke. Each cigarette you puff contains a mixture of carbon monoxide and nicotine, two of the most dangerous elements around. This mixture causes your heart rate and blood pressure to rise, making your heart and blood vessels strain very hard. This difficulty slows down your blood flow and cuts off oxygen delivery to your hands and feet. Without a doubt, it can lead to heart attack and stroke. In fact, some smokers who have experienced this needed to have their limbs amputated. Surely, you don’t want to go through something as painful, not to mention expensive, as these harmful smoking effects.

One of the most common and known harmful smoking effects is lung cancer. This type of cancer is caused by tar that coats your lungs. It has been reported that compared to women who smoke, men who smoke have bigger chances – ten times more, in fact – of getting lung cancer. The longer you smoke, your larger your airways swell up, allowing less and less air into your lungs and causing you to pant for breath. This is why smokers normally experience coughing, which can become complicated with other more serious diseases.

Two of the more major harmful smoking effects, aside from heart attack and stroke, are emphysema and bronchitis. Emphysema, a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, is primarily caused by exposure to tobacco smoke for a long period of time. When you contract emphysema, your lung tissue loses elasticity because of the destruction of the alveoli and the capillaries caused by a deficiency of alpha 1 antitrypsin. Your lungs experiences and impediment in airflow, with air trapped in the lungs and the airways collapsed during exhalation. Overtime, this problem develops into emphysema, which can lead to acute or chronic bronchitis. This may be the reason why you have difficulty breathing.

Life is short. There are so many things the world offers, so many things you still have to and can do. Don’t waste precious time on those filthy cigarettes. Quit now.