Cigarettes: nails in the coffin lid

There is nothing more harmful to health that can be avoided than tobacco. In addition to bad breath, yellowing fingers and teeth, smoke-smelling clothes, "smoker's cough," tobacco means 300 000 deaths each year, mainly from cancer (and not only lungs) and heart disease - and not only deaths but - o , How much pain and suffering!

Smoking translates you into health in a completely different category compared to non-smokers, and you are forced to look at any suspicious symptom very seriously.

So, if you smoke :

You do not have the right to consider as a trifle a chronic perspiration in the throat , which does not go away after a cold. This may be the first sign of lung cancer .

If earlier two staircases overcame without problems, and now puff and suffocate, think about emphysema, chronic bronchitis or some other lung disease .

You urinate more often; Emptying is painful and several times you have seen blood in your urine. If you do not smoke, suspect a simple enlargement of the prostate. A smoker, however, should also suggest bladder cancer : cigarettes increase predisposition to it.

Here are some of the mechanisms by which tobacco adversely affects your health.

First, let 's talk about the lungs . The mucous membrane of the nasal cavity and trachea is lined with special cells with cilia, the so-called ciliated epithelium. Cilia of the ciliated epithelium oscillate against the movement of the inhaled air, expelling dust particles together with the mucus and thus purifying the inhaled air. When you inhale the tobacco, these little cilia are paralyzed. During sleep, when you do not smoke, the hairs recover and start working again, pushing the accumulated "trash" upward, from the bronchial tubes to the throat. In the morning, when you wake up, it gives you the familiar " dry smoker's cough ". After many years of smoking, the cilia eventually collapse and no longer function at night. So the mucus in the airways, along with the dust particles and other foreign material that you inhaled, just stays in place, instead of being lifted up and out. It is an excellent nutrient medium for bacteria, and that's why smokers are so common with colds, respiratory infections and chronic bronchitis.

Tobacco smoke also increases emphysema, a disease in which the lungs lose elasticity, and the alveoli-air bubbles, which provide for the exchange of carbon dioxide to oxygen-are destroyed. Alveoli combine into larger air cavities, and their total surface decreases, hampering such an important gas exchange process. As a result, a person with emphysema can spend 80% of their energy to get enough oxygen for breathing; The non-smoker spends for this purpose only 5% of energy.

And, of course, lung cancer . 85% of cases of lung cancer in men and 75% of women are associated with smoking. Maybe you decided to "secure" yourself, stopped breathing smoke or went to the tube and cigars, maybe sniffing or chewing tobacco. All this is self-deception. The only thing you achieve is to replace lung cancer with cancer of the lip , mouth, tongue and throat . Take any organ - the pancreas, kidneys, stomach, even the cervix - they all become more vulnerable to cancer in smokers.

Smoking future mothers harms the health of the child. Pregnant women who click lighters are much more likely to give birth to a dead child or get a miscarriage . Pregnant women who smoke also suffer premature rupture of amniotic membranes and bleeding , and their babies are born with less weight than required by the norm. A recent study of three-year-olds showed that children who at birth weighed less, remembered less, and did not have the same math abilities as their peers, could blame their mothers who smoked during pregnancy.

Patients often ask doctors: "How can cigarettes be harmful to me if they so cheer?" We will now tell you why they are " exhilarating " and what they are really doing with you. During smoking, a person draws into the lungs a mixture of tar, nicotine and another four thousand different harmful gases and compounds, including cyanide, volatile aromatic hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide. These poisons enter the bloodstream and are sent directly to the heart. Within seven seconds, nicotine is pumped through the heart into the brain, where it is absorbed and causes the release of substances called catecholamines. These catecholamines have an adrenaline-like effect, increasing the number of heartbeats and raising blood pressure . That's what "cheering" gives. So spinning a lighter with a lighter continuously during the day maintains a "good mood" due to the vascular system. If you are a smoker, check it out for yourself. Count your pulse and, if you can, determine the blood pressure before the first morning cigarette. Then take a puff and see what happened. Your pulse will increase by 20 beats per minute, the pressure will rise by 10 to 20 divisions, and I hope you will not make any more puffs.

A more serious consequence of this "fine mood" is the intake of free fatty acids into the bloodstream. They eventually settle in the arteries and clog them. That's why smoking doubles the risk of getting a heart attack and increases the risk of sudden death from heart failure two to four times. Tobacco smoke not only releases fatty acids, but also compresses and narrows the blood vessels . If this happens, you feel constricted in the throat and chest, which clearly indicates the angina pectoris . Passive, or secondary, smoking - just staying in the same room as a smoker - is also harmful.

Heavy smokers often say: "What's the difference? I've smoked so many years that if I leave now, it will not change anything." This is not true. No matter how long you smoke, if you quit now, your predisposition to all diseases will quickly decrease. After 10 years, free from smoking, the likelihood that you will develop heart disease will be no more than a person who has never smoked, even if you smoked a pack a day! After 10 to 15 years, the probable life span of an ex-smoker, as well as the chance to earn lung cancer and laryngeal cancer, are the same as in people who have never smoked!

If you smoke and still have not been able to quit, the first step may be to switch to varieties with a low content of nicotine and tar. Although there is no such thing as a "safe cigarette". The American cancer society found that the death rate among people who smoke such cigarettes is 16% less than among those who smoke cigarettes with a high content of nicotine and tar, and they have a 26% lower risk of cancer.

Smoking is more than a bad habit; It is addiction , and, therefore, it is usually very difficult to get rid of it. But the danger to your health is so great that you have to try to do it for yourself and for those to whom you are dear.