Why Is Smoking Bad For You?

“Smoking is injurious to health” is a common quote found almost everywhere and known by everyone. But the question arises that how many people actually obey the quote and act accordingly. It is quoted that "A cigarette is a pipe with a fire at one end and a fool at the other".

Knowing the injurious effects of smoking, don’t be the fool to try it. Cigarette smoking is addictive and harmful. In a single cigarette, there 4000 chemicals which are highly poisonous and few are carcinogenic (cancer-causing).

Cigarette contains nicotine, an extremely addictive stimulant that causes psychological and physical dependency. Cigarette smoking has been linked to 11 types of cancers, including cancer of the kidney, bladder, pancreas, mouth, esophagus etc. Recent study suggests that smokers are 26 times more prone to die of lung cancer than non-smokers.Smoking reduces high-density lipoprotein (HDL) or “good” cholesterol, increases blood clotting and blood pressure, and significantly decreases the amount of oxygen that reaches the heart. The two most hazardous health effects of smoking are emphysema and lung cancer. Emphysema is a chronic disease which destroys parts of the lungs and results in asthma-like attacks, hyperventilation, and shortness of breath. Lung cancer is the No.1 cause of cancer deaths for men and women, worldwide. Other serious side effects of smoking are back pain, peptic ulcers, high risk of stroke, reduced fertility, cataracts, coronary thrombosis, kidney failure, gangrene etc.

How many heavy smokers do you know that can cut their intake in half and maintain that reduction?  Or, who don’t inhale more deeply when they decrease the number of cigarettes they smoke? Or who don’t cover up the holes in the filter when they try to reduce their consumption?   I suspect the answer is: not many.  Smokers know too many tricks that make it look like they are cutting back, but in fact still enable them to inhale almost the same amount of nicotine into their lungs and their bodies that they received when they were smoking a larger number of cigarettes.

So what we have here is an unrealistic expectation that some may use to justify continued smoking. 

We need to be direct and accurate in our message: smoking is bad for your health.  Reducing your cigarette consumption is not going to be the answer for any particular individual.  The difficult fact is that if you are a smoker, you need to stop, and if you are a non-smoker, don’t start.  And, if you work in or patronize an establishment where smoking is allowed, you need to know you are placing yourself at risk.

If you are a smoker, I would take no comfort in the results of these research reports.  The message today is the same as it has been for many years:  there is no such thing as a “safe level “of exposure to cigarette smoke.

We need to heed that message, and make certain that our smoking friends and the politicians understand it as well.