A lot of people say they know many who have smoked all their lives but are still very much alive and kicking. And there are those other people who died of cancer without smoking a single cigarette their entire lives. You might be duped to think smoking has nothing to do with cancer. Although research proved that smoking is most definitely related to cancer, that does not mean that all smokers will get cancer or that non-smokers won’t. It’s only common sense. Smokers are, on average, much more likely to get cancer than non-smokers.
Statistically speaking half of all the smokers die from cancer or other smoking-related diseases. And the painful truth is a quarter of smokers die in their middle age, between 35 and 69.
A smoker thinks that by smoking he will get lung cancer, but that’s just one of the diseases. There are a lot more forms of cancer that are related to smoking: oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, stomach, bladder, kidney, pancreas and cervix (and the list is not complete). Smoking harms nearly every major organ of your body.
The cigarette contains a huge number (around six hundred) of allowed additives, which although are approved as additives for food, were not tested by burning them, and it is known that by burning them, their properties change, often for the worse. Over 4.000 chemical compounds are created by burning a cigarette, many of which are at least toxic. In the cigarette smoke there have been found a lot of toxins like carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide and ammonia. That’s the reason why second hand smoking is so dangerous.
Cancer is the second cause of death all over the world and the researchers link it to smoking, since lung cancer is the widest form. Smoking is said to damage important genes that control the growth of cells (it damages the DNA) - causing them to grow abnormally or to reproduce too rapidly.
The risk of getting cancer increases with the number of cigarettes smoked and the number of years of smoking, the only good news being that, generally, the risk decreases after quiting. Keep in mind that smoking cigarettes that have a lower yield of tar does not substantially reduce the risk of cancer. Make no mistake about it - there’s no “safe” cigarette.
Nicotine is a drug that is naturally present in the tobacco plant and it is primarily responsible for the addiction. During smoking, nicotine is absorbed quickly into the bloodstream and travels to the brain in a matter of seconds. The cigarette addiction is very similar to the addiction produced by heroin and cocaine. It is very hard for a smoker to quit because the addiction is not so much physical as it is with other kind of drugs, but psycho-physical, making it arguably harder. But not impossible!
The truth is there is an overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking is bad for your health. Smokers are far more likely to develop serious diseases compared to non-smokers.
Quiting smoking reduces all the risks brought on by smoking. As you can see, there are just too many not to make you at least wonder. The earlier a person quits, the greater the health benefit.
