It's 2018, and smoking cigarettes is still a habit for some people. Studies that show cigarettes are terrible for your health have been around longer than college students have been alive. But people who smoke are too stubborn to listen or are so weak they can't quit. However, a recent study just came out that showed only 14% of adults in the United States smoke, an all time low. It's hard to believe that anyone would want to pick up this disgusting habit.
Cigarettes should be outlawed but they aren't because it helps the economy. Lawmakers are looking out for their wallets and not the citizens they govern. And then it just brings in more money when smokers are diagnosed with a life-threatening disease and have to go to the hospital. It's all sick how it works. So here is another reminder of the effects of smoking.
Besides the obvious smelly clothes, coughing 24/7, and halitosis, smokers can forward to having premature wrinkles, gum and tooth loss, stomach ulcers and a weakened immune system. Smokers are more sensitive to cold and heat and will have increased heart rate and blood pressure. Female smokers are likely to have more painful menstrual cramps as well.
According to a study by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, the average cost of one pack of cigarettes is about $5. If a smoker smoked a pack a day, that's $35 for the week. Over the course of one year, a smoker will spend almost $2000 on cigarettes if they only smoke a pack a day.
So, if you don't mind the smell, or the fact that a couple of your teeth are missing, or that you're sick all the time and apparently you have an extra $35 laying around every week, what happens next?
You can expect damage structure to your heart and blood vessels, which can cause your blood to clot, and when blood clots block blood flow to your heart, it loses oxygen it needs which damages your heart's muscle or can even kill it. Next up is atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is where plaque liquids build in the arteries which causes arteries to harden and narrow, limiting the flow of the oxygen-filled blood to other parts of the body. Once the plaque builds up in the arteries, it's not long before coronary heart disease. This can cause chest pain, heart attack/failure, or arrhythmias.
Smoking can also cause peripheral arterial disease. This is when plaque builds up in the blood vessels that deliver blood to the head, organs, and limbs, most commonly the legs. This can cause leg pains, especially when walking. Smokers are two to four times as likely to have a stroke than non-smokers. This occurs when clots block the blood flow from your brain or when an artery near your brain explodes.
Smoking can lead to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Emphysema is a disease of the lung where small sacs in the lung that obtain oxygen from the air and the blood stream are destroyed. Chronic bronchitis is the inflammation of the lining of tubes that carry air to and from the lungs.
Women who smoke can have reduced fertility. Pregnant smokers can have all sorts of problems with the fetus. Smoking puts them at a higher risk of early delivery, miscarriage, or still birth as well as encountering Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, ectopic pregnancy, and orofacial clefts. Men may have erectile dysfunction, poor sperm quality and sperm defects.
Just about everyone knows that smoking causes lung cancers. But what most people don't know is that smoking can cause cancer to other parts of the body, such as bladder, blood, cervix, colon/rectum, esophagus, kidney/ureter, larynx, liver, oropharynx, pancreas, and stomach.
Is smoking worth all of that?
