6 Side Effects Of Smoking On Your Health

I have taken up the herculean task of telling you the dangers of smoking! The task is nothing short of ‘Herculean’ because one needs to muster courage before telling someone they love to quit smoking. One either gets the ‘I don’t give a damn’ face or the ‘I know dude’ face from a smoker. However as long as you’re reading my article, you’re my responsibility. And yes I care. I care about you and all the others who don’t give a rat’s ass about their health. I understand that you deserve to lead a life at your own terms but so do others and you have no right to become a liability on them. Therefore, think twice before picking up this insidious habit.

# Smoking speeds up aging

Some of the more obvious signs of smoking involve the skin. The substances in tobacco smoke actually change the structure of your skin. Your fingernails and the skin on your fingers may have yellow staining from holding cigarettes. Smokers usually develop yellow or brown stains on their teeth.

# Leaves you craving more

One of the ingredients in tobacco is a mood-altering drug called nicotine. Nicotine reaches your brain in mere seconds. It’s a central nervous system stimulant, so it makes you feel more energized for a while. As that effect subsides, you feel tired and crave more. Nicotine is habit forming.

# Damages the liver as well

The liver isn’t confined to damage from alcohol consumption. Smoking ups people’s risk for liver cancer dramatically, according to a 2011 study that found nearly half of all liver cancer cases were the result of smoking. The majority of liver cancer deaths are the result of hepatocellular carcinoma, a leading cause of cancer deaths, among sub-Saharan African and Southeast Asian countries.

# Smoking leads to fertility problems

Most people are unaware of this evil of smoking. Smoking causes erectile dysfunction in men and pregnancy complications in women. Male smokers can suffer decreased sperm quality with lower counts (numbers of sperm) and motility (sperm’s ability to move) and increased numbers of abnormally shaped sperm. Smoking might also decrease the sperm’s ability to fertilize eggs. Menopause occurs 1 to 4 years earlier in women who smoke (compared with non-smokers).

Because smoking damages the genetic material in eggs and sperm, miscarriage and offspring birth-defect rates are higher among patients who smoke. Smokeless tobacco also leads to increased miscarriage rates. Women who smoke are more likely to conceive an unhealthy, chromosomal pregnancy as seen in Down syndrome.

# Smoking is extremely dangerous for your lungs

When you inhale smoke, you’re taking in substances that can damage your lungs. At first the damage is repaired but over time, your lungs lose their ability to filter harmful chemicals. Coughing can’t clear out the toxins sufficiently, so these toxins get trapped in the lungs. Smokers have a higher risk of respiratory infections, colds, and flu. Over time, smokers are at increased risk of developing different forms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Abnormality in these cells leads to the development of lung cancer.

# Develops gangrene in extreme cases

Buerger’s disease begins by causing your arteries to swell and blood clots to form in your blood vessels. This restricts normal blood flow and prevents blood from fully circulating through your tissues. This results in tissue death because the tissues are starved of nutrients and oxygen.

The complete cutoff of circulation to the finger or toes, results in gangrene. The most common age bracket that this disease strikes is in people between the ages of 20 to 40, normally young to get circulation problems that result in amputations. While it is much more common in men, women are affected to. What makes Buerger’s Disease unique is that it is a disease that is basically exclusive to smokers.