Smoking isn’t just bad for your lungs

Smoking isn’t just bad for your lungs

No matter how you slice it, puffing on a cigarette, or any other tobacco product for that matter, simply ups the ante for more health complications. Smoking causes nearly 1 in 5 deaths each year. About 8.6 million Americans suffer from smoking-related chronic conditions, including chronic bronchitis, emphysema and heart disease.

Pregnancy and childhood

During pregnancy, smoking increases the risk of complications that can endanger a mother’s life. It nearly doubles the risk of having a low-birth-weight baby and is a leading cause of preterm labor, the March of Dimes says. Smoking causes an estimated 910 infant deaths a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Babies who breathe in secondhand smoke are at increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome, asthma, ear infections and other problems.

Smoking isn’t just bad for your lungs

Smoking isn’t just bad for your lungs

No matter how you slice it, puffing on a cigarette, or any other tobacco product for that matter, simply ups the ante for more health complications. Smoking causes nearly 1 in 5 deaths each year. About 8.6 million Americans suffer from smoking-related chronic conditions, including chronic bronchitis, emphysema and heart disease.

Heart

Smoking’s assault on the heart doubles or triples the risk of dying from coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death in the USA, the American Heart Association says. The toll is enormous: Each year, nearly 900,000 people die of coronary heart disease.

That’s because smoking narrows blood vessels supplying the heart and other parts of the body; it also promotes blood clotting, raises blood pressure and weakens the biggest artery in the abdomen, sometimes causing it to burst, a condition called abdominal aortic aneurysm, AHA says. Secondhand smoke kills 23,000 to 70,000 people prematurely each year.

Smoking isn’t just bad for your lungs

Smoking isn’t just bad for your lungs

No matter how you slice it, puffing on a cigarette, or any other tobacco product for that matter, simply ups the ante for more health complications. Smoking causes nearly 1 in 5 deaths each year. About 8.6 million Americans suffer from smoking-related chronic conditions, including chronic bronchitis, emphysema and heart disease.

Diabetes

Diabetes and smoking don’t mix. Tobacco use can elevate blood sugar levels and lead to insulin resistance, say experts at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. The more you smoke, the bigger your risk: More than 20 cigarettes a day almost doubles smokers’ risk of developing diabetes, compared with nonsmokers’. “People with diabetes already have higher cardiovascular risks,” says David Kendall of the American Diabetes Association. Smoking “just adds to the burden of that risk.”

Smoking isn’t just bad for your lungs

Smoking isn’t just bad for your lungs

No matter how you slice it, puffing on a cigarette, or any other tobacco product for that matter, simply ups the ante for more health complications. Smoking causes nearly 1 in 5 deaths each year. About 8.6 million Americans suffer from smoking-related chronic conditions, including chronic bronchitis, emphysema and heart disease.

Cancer

The smoking-cancer link is well-known to most: Smoking causes at least 30% of all cancer deaths and 87% of lung cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society. Smoking increases the risk of at least 15 cancers, including those of the throat, nasal cavity, lip, mouth, larynx, esophagus, pancreas, cervix, kidney, bladder and stomach, as well as acute myeloid leukemia.

Cigarette Smoking Facts

***Cigarettes are the single-most traded item on the planet, with approximately 1 trillion being sold from country to country each year. At a global take of more than $400 billion, it’s one of the world’s largest industries.

*** The nicotine content in several major brands is reportedly on the rise. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Health Department revealed that between 1997 and 2005 the amount of nicotine in Camel, Newport, and Doral cigarettes may have increased by as much as 11 percent.

*** In 1970, President Nixon signed the law that placed warning labels on cigarettes and banned television advertisements for cigarettes. The last date that cigarette ads were permitted on TV was extended by a day, from December 31, 1970 to January 1, 1971 to allow the television networks one last cash windfall from cigarette advertising in the New Year’s Day football games.

*** U.S. cigarette manufacturers now make more money selling cigarettes to countries around the globe than they do selling to Americans.

*** The American brands Marlboro, Kool, Camel and Kent own roughly 70% of the global cigarette market.

Cigarette Smoking Facts

***Cigarettes contain arsenic, formaldehyde, lead, hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia and 43 known carcinogens.

***In the early 1950s, the Kent brand of cigarettes used crocidolite asbestos as part of the filter, a known active carcinogen.

*** Urea, a chemical compound that is a major component in urine, is used to add “flavor” to cigarettes.

*** The ‘Cork Tip’ filter was originally invented in 1925 by Hungarian inventor Boris Aivaz, who patented the process of making the cigarette filter from crepe paper. All kinds of filters were tested, although ‘cork’ is unlikely to have been one of them.

*** In most countries around the world, the legal age for the purchase of tobacco products is now 18, raised from 16, while in Japan the age minimum is 20 years old.

Cigarette Smoking Facts

***Contrary to popular social belief, it is NOT illegal to smoke tobacco products at any age. Parents are within the law to allow minors to smoke, and minors are within the law to smoke tobacco products freely. However, the SALE of tobacco products is highly regulated with legal legislation.

***Smoking bans in many parts of the world have been employed as a means to stop smokers smoking in public. As a result, many social businesses have claimed a significant drop in the number of people who go out to pubs, bars and restaurants.

*** Scientists claim the average smoker will lose 14 years of their life due to smoking. This however does not necessarily mean that a smoker will die young – and they may still live out a ‘normal’ lifespan.

*** The U.S. states with the highest percentage of smokers are Kentucky (28.7%), Indiana (27.3%), and Tennessee (26.8%), while the states with the fewest are Utah (11.5%), California ( 15.2%), and Connecticut (16.5%).

***Cigarettes can contain more than 4,000 ingredients, which, when burned, can also produce over 200 ‘compound’ chemicals. Many of these ‘compounds’ have been linked to lung damage.

Smoking Also Kills The Enviornment; California Launches A New Strategy

Smoking is a killer. We all know this. However, as we face a decaying environmental landscape, discarded cigarette butts have become the focus of a new ad campaign announced this week by the California Health and Human Services Agency (CHHS). Thirty years ago, California began the fight to squelch tobacco use in their state, but today the newly launched ads include a focus attention on smoking's ... for more info you may visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/People-Against-Smoking/174447052575916?ref=sgm

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