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Category Name:
Knowledge Library
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A Health Hazard
Smoking is considered a health hazard because tobacco smoke contains nicotine , a poisonous alkaloid, and other harmful substances such as carbon monoxide, acrolein, ammonia, prussic acid, and a number of aldehydes and tars; in all tobacco contains some 4,000 chemicals.
Surgeon General's Advisory Committee
In 1964 definitive proof that cigarette smoking is a serious health hazard was contained in a report by the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Health, appointed by the U.S. Public Health Service. The committee drew evidence from numerous studies conducted over decades.
Can Contract Lung Cancer
They concluded that a smoker has a significantly greater chance of contracting lung cancer than a nonsmoker, the rate varying according to factors such as the number of cigarettes smoked per day, the number of years the subject smoked, and the time in the person's life when he or she began smoking. Cigarette smoking was also found to be an important cause of cancers of the esophagus, nasopharynx, mouth, larynx, kidney, and bladder as well as a cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema , and heart disease, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases.
Smokeless Tobacco
Smoking also increases risks associated with oral contraceptive use and exposure to occupational hazards, such as asbestos . Pipe and cigar smokers, if they do not inhale, are not as prone to lung cancer as cigarette smokers, but they are as likely to develop cancers of the mouth, larynx, and esophagus. Those who use snuff or chewing tobacco (sometimes called “smokeless tobacco” ) run a greater risk of developing cancer of the mouth. Since then it has been found to be an independent risk factor in male impotence.
Children Of Smokers
Inhalation of tobacco smoke by nonsmokers has been found to increase the risk of heart disease and respiratory problems; this has created a movement for smokeless environments in public spaces, including government buildings, office buildings, and restaurants. Fetal damage can be caused if a mother smokes or is exposed to smoke during pregnancy. Children of smokers have a higher risk of asthma and lung disease. Doctor Douglas Model of Eastbourne, England, added this condition to the medical lexicon in 1985 after surveying 116 patients and correctly identifying roughlyhalf of current smokers by their facial features alone.
Dr. Jeffrey B. Smith
Smoker's face distinctive characteristics, makes people look far older than their years, were present in 46% of the current smokers, 8% of the former smokers, and none of the nonsmokers, irrespective of their age, social class, recent weight fluctuations, and exposure to sunlight. Dr. Jeffrey B. Smith, a senior resident in dermatology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, recalled this poignant diagnosis in a review of the effects of smoking - related skin conditions: Smoking damages cells and tissues in so many ways that it can have myriad effects on the body.
Wrinkles
"For some patients the threat of wrinkles may be a more powerful motivator to help them stop smoking than the more deadly consequences of smoking," Smith wrote. He explained that, as with skin that is overexposed to sunlight, smoking causes thickening and fragmentation of elastin, the elastic fibers that are long and smooth in healthy skin. Smoking also depletes the skin's oxygen supply by reducing circulation. It decreases the formation of collagen, the skin's main structural component, and may reduce the water content of the skin, all of which increase wrinkling.
Skin Cancers
Two kinds of skin cancers, the more curable squamous cell carcinomas and the often lethal melanomas, are influenced by smoking. Smith said that although smoking did not cause melanoma, smokers with melanoma were more likely to die of their disease. They are twice as likely to have advanced disease at the time of diagnosis and are more likely to have their cancers spread within two years of diagnosis, probably because smoking impairs the immune system.
Cell Carcinoma
As for squamous cell carcinoma, even when exposure to sunlight was taken into account, smokers were found to be at greater risk of developing this cancer. In a study of more than 107,000 nurses, for example, the risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma was 50 per cent greater in smokers than in those who had never smoked. Smokers also tend to get particularly "large, bad" skin cancers, Smith said.
Free Radicals
Smoking also interferes with the skin's ability to protect itself against damage by free radicals, highly reactive substances that are omnipresent in tobacco smoke. In women, smoking diminishes the level of circulating estrogen, which in turn fosters dryness and disintegration of skin tissues. Other Cancers: Cancers of the lip, mouth, penis, anus and vulva are also more common in smokers than nonsmokers.
*Note: Image(s) by the courtesy of http://www.quit-smoking-for-good.org.
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Daily Quote
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Health is like money, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it.
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