LEARN  NEW WAYS TO STOP SMOKING

Most of the research carried out has concentrated on the carcinogens and other chemicals such as carbon monoxide that are found in tobacco smoke. Tobacco smoke contains more than 3,800 different compounds. Although all of these substances affect exposed humans to some degree, nicotine is generally considered to be the primary substance responsible for the pharmacological responses to smoking. According to the Surgeon General’s report, smoking causes damage the body in the following key ways:

• Nicotine reaches the brain within 10 seconds after smoke is inhaled. Studies shown than it have been found in every part of the body, including breast milk.
• Toxic ingredients in cigarette smoke travel throughout the body, causing damage in several different ways.
• Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin in the red blood cells. It prevents the affected cells from carrying a full load of oxygen.
• Carcinogens (cancer-causing agents) in tobacco smoke damage normal activity the genes that control cell growth, causing cells to grow abnormally or reproduce too rapidly.
• Smoking can cause oxidative stress that mutates DNA, promotes atherosclerosis, and also leads to chronic lung injury. Oxidative stress is believed to be behind the aging process and the development of cancer and cardiovascular disease.
• Smoking lowers levels of antioxidants in the body. Antioxidants repair damaged cells.
• Smoking is linked to higher levels of chronic inflammation in the body.
• Smoking damages skin by decreasing the flow of blood, and oxygen, to the upper layers of the skin. This leads to wrinkling and early aging.

Researches of nicotine and tobacco suggest that most of the adverse health effects of tobacco are related to non-nicotine components of tobacco smoke, rather than from the delivery of nicotine per se. Further, the vast majority of smokers who use nicotine replacement medications obtain lower doses of nicotine than when they were smoking.

Is it possible to undo damage caused by smoking

Smoking damages the body in so many different ways. From the heart and lungs to skin and teeth smoking wreaks havoc on the body. You can reverse damage causes of smoking if you quit. Within in just 20 minutes of quitting smoking, the blood pressure will drop back down to normal. After 1 to 5 years you stop smoking the risk of getting chronic disease; heart disease and stroke will decline respectively by half and back to normal as a non-smoker.

Moreover, the risk of getting lung cancer and coronary heart disease also will return to that of a non- smoker when the person quit smoking for about 10 to 15 years.