Known also as ‘respiratory overkill’, smoking is a dirty and dangerous form of slow suicide (self-killing) to the smoker.
Everybody’s lungs gradually get blackened by breathing in dirty and polluted air but smokers are more likely to develop serious, and often fatal (deadly) diseases as a result of inhaling the dangerous chemicals in tobacco smoke. The toxic (poisonous) components in tobacco – carbon monoxide, nicotine and tar – inhaled as vapours, kill the cilia. These chemicals irritate the air passages and increase the amount of mucus produced in them. This is one of the causes of ‘smoker’s cough’. The chemicals make the cilia less efficient at clearing the mucus away and so it builds up, making the lungs more prone to infection.
DO YOU KNOW?
-Smoking is one of the main causes of bronchitis (inflammation of the air passages) and 90 per cent of lung cancer is caused by smoking.
-Someone who smokes only five cigarettes a day is eight times more likely to die of lung cancer than a non-smoker.
-Smoking does not not only affect the lungs. The chemicals also get into the blood, reducing its ability to carry oxygen and damaging the heart and blood vessels.
-If 1000 children born today all take up smoking, 250 of them will be killed by smoking!
Passive smoking:
Even if you are a non-smoker, you are still susceptible to the dangerous effects of tobacco smoke. Constant exposure to it (especially due to a smoker(s) in your family) increases the mucus production in your air passages. You will easily get an infection caused by the obstructive and destructive changes in the bronchial tubes (air passages between your lungs and windpipe). So, if you are thinking of picking up the smoking habit. DON’T!!! Help your family and friends – if they smoke – to stub out of their cigarettes!
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Tags: air passages, bronchial tubes, chemicals in tobacco, chemicals in tobacco smoke, dangerous chemicals, deadly diseases, effects of tobacco, mucus production, slow suicide, smoking habit