Effects of Smoking

The effects of smoking are countless. From the impact to your health, the health of those around you and even the damage it can do to your home, it blows my mind that smoking is still so popular. While the popularity is on a decline, its still estimated that 35% of men and 22% of women worldwide still smokes.

• Smoke contains over 4000 chemicals including more than 40 cancer causing agents and 200 known poisons.
• Nicotine is comparable to heroine in terms of addiction.
• The nicotine released in gas form from smoke is easily absorbed through the lungs and into the blood stream. These chemicals alters the chemistry in the brain within seconds of inhalation. This causes a temporary euphoric sensation - which is why people crave nicotine so much.
• Carbon monoxide impairs the bloods ability to carry oxygen to the body including vital organs like the brain and heart.
• Smokers are in a constant state of oxygen deprivation because of the high amounts of carbon monoxide in their blood (4 to 15 times more than nonsmokers).
• The average cigarette has more than 600 times the concentration that is considered safe in industrial plants, where carbon monoxide poisoning is a constant danger.

If the preceding facts about the chemicals introduced to your body through smoke hasn't scared you, try this.

Step 1: Take a puff of smoke without inhaling it and hold it in your mouth. Take a white handkerchief and hold it up to your mouth.

Step 2: Exhale the smoke through the handkerchief and you will be able to see the tar that is deposited into your lungs with every inhalation of smoke. Just imagine the cumulative effect after a pack a day for years.

Nicotine has historically been one of the toughest addictions to break, but here are six reasons quitting is worth it.

1. People who smoke spend 27% more time in hospitals and nearly 2 times the amount of time in intensive care units compared to nonsmokers.
2. A smoker is at twice the risk of dying before age sixty-five as a nonsmoker.
3. The risk of lung cancer increases 50% to 100% with every cigarette that a person smokes per day.
4. Smoking filter tipped cigarettes cuts the risk of lung cancer by up to 20%, but still does not eliminate the danger involved.
5. Each cigarette costs the smoker 5 to 25 minutes of life.
6. The risk of Heart Disease increases 50% with every pack of cigarettes a person smokes per day.

• Over the past two decades, research has shown that non-smokers suffer many of the diseases of active smoking when they breathe secondhand smoke.
• Children exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely to experience increased frequency of: asthma, colds, bronchitis, pneumonia and other lung diseases. Sinus infection and middle ear infections.

• When a pregnant woman is exposed to secondhand smoke, the nicotine she ingests is passed on to her unborn baby.

• Women who smoke or are exposed to secondhand smoke during pregnancy have a higher rate of miscarriages and stillbirths, low birth weight babies, have babies with decreased lung function and have babies with a greater risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

• Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer and contributes to the development of heart disease.

• Non smoking women who live with a smoker have a 91% greater risk of heart disease. They also have twice the risk of dying from lung cancer.

• Non-smoking spouses who are exposed to secondhand smoke have about 20% higher death rates for both lung cancer and heart disease.

1. Studies show a correlation between second hand smoke and certain forms of cancer in pets.
2. In a study done by Tufts University and the University of Massachusetts researchers found a direct link between a cat’s chances of developing lymphoma and the number of smokers living in the home. A cat exposed to second hand smoke had double the risk of getting lymphoma. If the cat had lived with a smoker for five years or more, the risk was tripled. If there were two smokers in the house the risk increased four times.
3. Birds with their tiny lungs are particularly susceptible to lung illness, cancers and even death from living in a smoky home.

1. Homes owned by smokers are historically difficult to sell.

2. These smoked in homes often take 2-3 times longer to sell, or require tens of thousands in new carpets, paint and clean up before selling.

3. A home smoked in for many years will often sell for 5-15% less than a home that hasn't been smoked in.

• Encourage them to smoke outdoors. The risks of smoking indoors and the challenges of eliminating the smoke effectively are just too great.
• If you or a family member insists on smoking indoors, set up a closed room as a “smoking room”. Close off all return vents in the room to minimize the amount of smoke that gets drawn into the ductwork and pumped into every room of the home. Then, weather strip the door, crack a window in the room and run a home smoke eater air cleaner capable of removing the smoke particles as well as the thousands of gases and fumes.
• Do not smoke or allow family members to smoke if children are present (particularly infants and toddlers, who are especially susceptible to the effects of tobacco smoke). Sometimes smoking family members may be belligerent of such a rule—but smoking around children is a life or death situation. You would not let your child play with a gun because of the potential danger of it firing—why you would feel any differently about secondhand smoke, which is statistically much more dangerous?
• Do not allow babysitters or other people who work in your home to smoke indoors.
• For families with heavy smokers or multiple smokers, you should consider a comprehensive approach to smoke removal. A quality smoke eater in the dedicated smoking room coupled with effective whole house filtration and air purification to help clean the air of the multiple pollutants.

Your family and your home will thank you.

Smoking is still a personal choice. If you want to smoke, knowing all of the health hazards, go for it. But please consider the harmful effects of smoking on others. Perhaps even your loved ones. You may try to delude yourself into thinking that all the anti-smoking in the media along with complaints from family members are simply discrimination, but the facts are indisputable. Smoking and even second hand smoke is not just uncomfortable but downright dangerous.