FAQ on Smoking and Health (Part II)




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7. What is cigarette smoke composed of and how harmful are the “ingredients“?

Tobacco smoke contains a number of harmful compounds that also result from burning of cigarette wrapping and various “flavour-enhancing” additives. The most dangerous of these “ingredients” is tar, which includes more than 43 carcinogenic chemicals and numerous other hazardous compounds which can cause respiratory disorders, cardiovascular disease, and other disabling conditions. A surprising array of dangerous chemicals found in cigarette smoke include methanol, benzene, nitrogen oxide, ammonia, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and even cyanide. And, of course, a substantial part of tobacco smoke in nicotine, a toxic and highly addictive chemical that harms the smoker’s health.

8. How does smoking harm our heart?

Cigarette smoking is known to elevate the risk of cardiovascular disease (hypertension, high blood cholesterol, heart attack, atherosclerosis, stroke, etc.), which is currently the industrialized world’s leading killer. In the US, almost 200,000 people die each year from heart attacks and strokes caused by tobacco consumption. In fact, smoking cigarettes almost doubles the risk of developing cardiovascular disease! In addition, for those who have already survived one heart attack but continue smoking, the risk of developing another heart attack or cardiac arrest is much higher than in those who have never smoked.

9. Why smoking is so harmful for pregnant women and their unborn babies?

Those pregnant women who dare to smoke put their baby’ heath in a tremendous risk. Statistics show that babies who have been exposed to cigarette smoke when still unborn have a considerably lower birth rate than babies of non-smoking mothers. Smoking pregnant women generously supply their unborn child with carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, nicotine, and other awful chemicals that enter the baby’s bloodstream from the mother’s system. Research reveals that smoking women run an increased risk of having a spontaneous abortion. Babies of smoking women are twice more likely to die from SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) than babies of women who have never smoked. A growing body of evidence also shows that children of smoking mothers have an elevated risk of suffering from asthma, chronic bronchitis, pneumonia, and ear infections later in life.

10. How dangerous is prolonged smoking?

Smoking cigarettes provokes the development of cancers. The longer you have smoked, the higher your risk of getting lung cancer and other types of malignancy. Largely due to this carcinogenic effect of smoking, smokers live at average ten years less than non-smokers. After the age of 35, death rates among long-term smokers are several times higher than those of non-smokers. Another harmful effect of prolonged smoking is deteriorated lung function leading to chronic coughing and shortness of breath with increased physical activity. Rapid skin aging, as well as decreased taste and smell sensations, are also observed among long-term smokers.

11. What is second-hand smoke and how dangerous is it?

Passive, or second-hand smoking, is the result of ETS, or environmental tobacco smoke, created by smokers when they light a cigar, cigarette, or pipe and when they exhale tobacco smoke into the air. As a result, non-smoking people involuntarily inhale all harmful substances contained in tobacco smoke, coming from both side stream smoke and mainstream smoke. Some specialists even insist that second-hand smoke contains more dangerous chemicals, including carcinogens, because it is formed at decreased temperatures. Recently, the US Environmental Protection Agency has included ETS into the list of “Group A” carcinogens, meaning that second-hand smoke is proven to cause different forms of cancer in people.

It is estimated that the presence of second-hand tobacco smoke in the atmosphere is a leading cause of lung cancer in people who do not smoke. If a non-smoker is continuously exposed to ETS, for example from a smoking family member or co-worker, his or her risk of developing lung cancer is about 30 percent higher than that of a non-smoker who does not inhale ETS on a regular basis. Children of smoking parents, especially if their parents smoke at home and / or in the family car, have a higher incidence of asthma and other lung diseases than children raised in a non-smoking environment.

Other unpleasant side effects of passive smoking include irritation of eyes and mucous membranes, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, nausea, and headaches in non-smokers.

Composed by staff writers

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Posted on March 14, 2008 
Filed Under Facts on Smoking, Smoking and Health

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