Understanding the Most Common Smoking Risks
More than five million people will die this year alone due to the effects of their cigarette smoking habits. Smoking is a high-risk activity that comes with a long list of commonly associated side effects that include a bevy of life-threatening diseases and even some threats to those in the area around a smoker.
The most common risks connected to smoking will have to do with the health problems that it causes. For one thing, a single cigarette (and the smoke it produces) will contain more than four thousand known chemicals, of which around fifty are known carcinogens (or cancer causing agents). Not only will these chemicals dramatically increase the risk of mouth, lung, throat, and pancreatic cancers, but they will also increase the blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and reduce the amount of oxygen in the blood.
These effects will impact the smoker, but they will also happen to someone who must inhale the “secondhand” smoke as well. This might mean that the partner, children and pets that live in the home are also taking in the many toxins and associated health risks too. In fact, over fifty thousand deaths in the United States each year are attributed to the effects of secondhand smoke alone.
Because of its toxicity levels, smoking also impacts the overall quality of life of the smoker, which is another primary risk of smoking too. Teens who smoke will not do as well in athletics as their peers, and they will weaken their bones at the same time too. This will lead to problems during their adult years, and most people who begin to smoke early in life will reduce their life span by seven to fourteen years by continuing to do so.
The quality of life for an adult smoker will be degraded by high blood pressure or cholesterol, increased risk of heart attack or stroke, and less life threatening problems like infertility, impotence, macular degeneration, and periodontal disease.
These problems can all be greatly reduced, and some might even be entirely eliminated, when the individual decides to stop smoking. In fact, within a year of quitting the average former smoker’s heart rate and blood pressure are within normal ranges, their lung function is dramatically improved, and their risk of coronary disease is cut by almost fifty percent than it was when they smoked.
The high costs of a smoking habit include health problems as well as financial issues, and it is always a good idea to keep these in mind when struggling through a smoking cessation program.
