Content Starts Here
Smoking - health risks
Reviewed by Dr Gavin Petrie, consultant chest physician
You can eat five portions of fruit and veg a day and exercise regularly, but healthy behaviour means little if you continue to smoke.
The message that 'smoking is bad for you' is an old one, so not everyone gives it their full attention. Below we list the health risks of smoking.
Why quit smoking?
Cardiovascular disease causes:
How do cigarettes damage health?
When you inhale, a cigarette burns at 700°C at the tip and around 60°C in the core. This heat breaks down the tobacco to produce various toxins.
As a cigarette burns, the residues are concentrated towards the butt.
The products that are most damaging are:
The damage caused by smoking is influenced by:
Smoking affects how long you live
Major diseases caused by smoking
Hardening of the arteries is a process that develops over years, when cholesterol and other fats deposit in the arteries, leaving them narrow, blocked or rigid. When the arteries narrow (atherosclerosis), blood clots are likely to form.
Smoking accelerates the hardening and narrowing process in your arteries: it starts earlier and blood clots are two to four times more likely.
Cardiovasular disease can take many forms depending on which blood vessels are involved, and all of them are more common in people who smoke.
Cancer
The link between smoking and lung cancer is clear.
The more cigarettes you smoke in a day, and the longer you've smoked, the higher your risk of lung cancer. Similarly, the risk rises the deeper you inhale and the earlier in life you started smoking.
For ex-smokers, it takes approximately 15 years before the risk of lung cancer drops to the same as that of a non-smoker.
If you smoke, the risk of contracting mouth cancer is four times higher than for a non-smoker. Cancer can start in many areas of the mouth, with the most common being on or underneath the tongue, or on the lips.
Other types of cancer that are more common in smokers are:
COPD
Cigarettes contain more than 4000 chemical compounds and at least 400 toxic substances.
Research has shown that smoking reduces life expectancy by seven to eight years.
Smokers are more likely to get cancer than non-smokers. This is particularly true of lung cancer, throat cancer and mouth cancer, which hardly ever affect non-smokers.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a collective term for a group of conditions that block airflow and make breathing more difficult, such as:
Go To Next Page>>
The documents contained in this web site are presented for information purposes only. The material is in no way intended to replace professional medical care or attention by a qualified practitioner. The materials in this web site cannot and should not be used as a basis for diagnosis or choice of treatment. Conditions for use
© Copyright 1998 - 2004 NetDoctor.co.uk - All rights reserved
Font size
Mail
My account
Help
Community
Print now
Send to a friend
Related articles
Related products
