“Smoking kills”, we often hear or see this sentence, but it does not prevent the death of millions of people each year as a result of smoking, especially in poor countries, as the word “killer” on a pack of cigarettes did not affect a lot of smokers, as they keep smoking, and the fact that the number of people who die due to smoking outnumbers those who die because of HIV/AIDS, drug addiction, alcohol and suicide combined, did not prevent them from continuing with this deadly habit which is spread all around the world, especially amongst the category of youth, thinking that they are fleeing the problems of life by smoking, but they do not know they’re in their way to the biggest problem and the most dangerous one.
History of smoking
The smoking habit appeared in the early sixteenth century when the American continent explorers introduced it to the European civilization, at the time, the termnicotineappeared amongst people while talking about smoking, as it came from the name of John Nicot, France’s Ambassador in Lisbon, where he confirmed that smoking has benefits such as re-awareness raising and treatment of many diseases, the current cigarettes that people know appeared in Brazil in 1870 AD, and since the first appearance of smoking, many people opposed it and especially (James I) in his book “The resistance of tobacco”, where smoking was considered a subversive way to health.
What is tobacco? What are the components?
The tobacco is manufactured from the plant tobacco, it can be cut and wrapped to make cigarettes, asthe tobacco cigarette and the smoke resulting from its combustion contains 4000 toxic substance, especiallycarcinogenic tar, suffocating coal gas and nicotine which is dissolved in the blood, as it’s the addictive material in the tobacco and heavy harmfulmetals to a large number of body organs and the radioactive cancer-causingelements.
Facts about smoking
Smoking causes many diseases, most notably the dramatically metastatic lung cancer, which was a rare disease before the thirties and there is no doubt that the most important reasons that led to the large increase in infection is smoking, it is also one of the most important reasons that lead to heart disease, stroke, andnon-cancerchronic lung disease such as a change in the bronchus and lung, which gradually evolve to cause chronic bronchitis, and smoking is very harmful to the fetus, where studies have shown that pregnant women who smoke are at a high rate of preterm birth, miscarriage or birth abnormalities with the fetus or even the death of the fetus.
Smoking damages
Smoking has many damages and negatives, most notably respiratory cancer, particularly lung cancer, which causes hardening the arteries, which increases the likelihood of heart attack and stroke, where smokers are at risk of heart attacks from 2 to 3 times more than non-smokers, Smoking also narrows the blood vessels, especially in the extremities, which in turn reduces the ability of the movement of the blood which may expose the smoker to gangrene infection that can cause the loss of a limb, angina isalso one of its causes, which is caused by a lack of oxygen that reaches the heart muscle.
The damagesof smoking on pregnant women
Smoking during pregnancy affects the health of women as well as the health of the fetus, as the weight of the child born will be smaller than expected when the mother smokes, it also increases the rate of abortions and stillbirths for women who smoke during pregnancy, as well as increasing the percentage of neonatal deaths among smoker women compared withnon-smoker women. Smoking can also cause the occurrence of abnormalities of the fetus if the mother smoked during pregnancy as the fetus is born with deformities caused by toxic substances in the smoke.
Passive smoking
Passive smoking is the process ofsmoke inhalation by a person who doesn’t smoke from someone elsewho smokes cigarettes next to him, as a person who resides in a place where smokers are may inhale an average of five cigarettes a day, which leads to irritation of the eyes and nose, coughing and wheezing. Moreover, passive smoking has many damages such as hay fever and asthma attacks, studies have shown that when a person is exposed to secondhand smoke face a greater risk of lung cancer and heart attacks.
Smoking and premature aging
It was medically proven that smoking greatly affects the age of women and men because of the toxic substances and carcinogens that cause fatigue and destroy the cells of the body in general, which accelerates the process of aging and being exposed to the Werner syndrome disease, which is a disease that shows all the manifestations of aging on a smoker person, such as white hair, skin thinning, diabetes, hardening of the arteries and fragile bones, and the usually die at the age of forty or fifty from heart disease or cancer, as studies have shown that smokers body tissues advance about 15 years more than non-smokers.
Smoking and environmental pollution
Smoking is considered one of the environmental pollution sources, especially indoor environments, where the percentage of carbon monoxide in the smoke produced by burning tobacco reaches up to 14 %, while no more than 10% in the crowded streets with cars, the seriousness of this gas increases if the smokers are in closed spaces, the damage caused by smoke more is presented more in cold regions than in the warm ones, because it is in the warm areas, the air next to the surface of the earth is hotter than in the upper layers, so hot air rises, carrying the smoke to the upper atmosphere where it is less harmful on people. The opposite happens in cold areas, the cold air does not rise, andsmoke hangs above cities and thus increasing the resulting damage.
Electronic Cigarette
It is an electrical device consisting of three parts, a battery,adisintegratordevice and a container, where the e-cigarette works as the regular cigarette through the production of smoke which looks like the smoke of a real tobacco cigarette, it is usually flavored with natural nicotine, the electronic cigarettewas presented as a way to quit smoking, and as an alternative to regular cigarettes, but an italian study showed that using it is considered as dangerous as regular cigarettes because it is no free on nicotine as some think, as this component causes cardiovascular disease, lung cancer and brain clots and strokes.
Hookah
People knew hookah in the Middle East for hundreds of years as it has spread dramatically in the Arab countries amongst all classes, ages and even women, as eastern cafes became associated with Arabic coffeeand hookah, andjust like cigarettes,hookah contains tobacco which contains harmful substances and causes cancer as confirmed by the German Cancer Research Center, these substances include nicotine and ammonia which increase the capacity of thesolubility ofnicotine in the bloodand speeds up the process of addiction to it.
Hookah constitutes a greater threat to the health compared to individual tobacco cigarettes, because studies have confirmed that it contains more harmful substances, where the body absorbs, during smoking,many materials such as arsenic, nickel and chromium in high density, these materials destroy lung function making it easy to get cancer. Also,hookahtakes more time to smoke, as a person needs a maximumof five minutes to smoke a cigarette, while others may continue for an hour in smoking hookah, so the damage is greater because the smoke stays for a longer time and is absorbed deeper into the lung, some people think that the water filters out theharmful substances from tobacco, this is not true; as there is a large proportion of toxic substances up to 80% that are absorbed.
Thedamage of Hookah is not limited to cancer and heart diseases only, but participation in smoking it helps in the transmission of other diseases such as herpes disease that causes painful blisters in the face, hepatitis, tuberculosis and fungal diseases.
