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Smoking damages your body in minutes, not in years as previously believed.

Smoking damages your body in minutes, not in years as previously believed.

A recent study has shown that cancer-causing substances form very rapidly after smoking a first cigarette. Scientists observed the effects of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) on 12 subjects. PAHs are chemicals that are known to cause cancer. Within 15 to 30 minutes of inhalation, the PAHs were transformed by the body into another substances that causes cancer by damaging a person’s DNA! This shows that the destructive process triggered by cigarettes actually begins with the FIRST one smoked! This is all the more reason for smokers to quit as soon as possible, and for non-smokers NEVER to begin in the first place. There may be genetic damage just moments after smoking.

The report, published in Chemical Research in Toxicology, shows that chemicals which cause cancer form rapidly after smoking.

Scientists involved in the small-scale study described the results as a stark warning to people considering smoking.

Anti-smoking charity Ash described the research as “chilling” and as a warning that it is never too early to quit.

The long term impact of smoking, from heart disease to a range of cancers, is well known. This study suggests the damage begins just moments after the first cigarette is smoked. Faster than you might think.

The researchers looked at the level of chemicals linked with cancer, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), in 12 patients after smoking.

A PAH was added to the subject’s cigarettes, which was then modified by the body and turned into another chemical which damages DNA and has been linked with cancer.

The research shows this process only took between 15 and 30 minutes to take place.

Professor Stephen Hecht, from the University of Minnesota, said: “This study is unique, it is the first to investigate human metabolism of a PAH specifically delivered by inhalation in cigarette smoke, without interference by other sources of exposure such as air pollution or the diet.

“The results reported here should serve as a stark warning to those who are considering starting to smoke cigarettes.”

Martin Dockrell, director of policy and research at Ash (Action on Smoking and Health), said: “Almost everybody knows that smoking can cause lung cancer.

“The chilling thing about this research is that it shows just how early the very first stages of that process begin – not in 30 years but within 30 minutes of a single cigarette for every subject in the study.

“The process starts early but it is never too late to quit and the sooner you quit the sooner you start to reduce the harm.”

The research was funded by the US National Cancer Institute.

Passive smoking kills 600,000 a year

The study found second-hand tobacco smoke kills some 600,000 people worldwide every year.

Passive smoking kills 600,000 a year: study

Second-hand tobacco smoke kills some 600,000 people worldwide every year.

The study found second-hand tobacco smoke kills some 600,000 people worldwide every year. (Reuters: Alexandra Beier, file photo)

Second-hand tobacco smoke kills upward of 600,000 people every year, nearly a third of them children, according to the first global assessment released Friday.

Unlike lifestyle diseases, which stem largely from individual choice, the victims of passive smoking pay the price for the behaviour of others, especially family members.

Among non-smokers worldwide, 40 per cent of children, 35 per cent of women and 33 per cent of men were exposed to second-hand smoke in 2004, the most recent year for which data was available across the 192 countries examined.

When added to the 5.1 million fatalities attributable to active smoking, the final death toll from tobacco for 2004 was more than 5.7 million people, the study concluded.

Nearly half the passive-smoking deaths occurred in women, with the rest divided almost equally between children and men, said the study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet.

Some 60 per cent were caused by heart disease and 30 per cent by lower respiratory infections, followed by asthma and lung cancer.

All told, passive smoking accounted for 1 per cent of worldwide mortality in 2004.

Adult deaths caused by second-hand tobacco were spread evenly across poor and rich nations.

But for children, poverty made things much worse, the study found.

The adult-to-child ratio of fatalities in high-income Europe, for example, was 35,388 to 71.

The ratio in Africa was nearly reversed: 9,514 to 43,375.

“Children’s exposure to second-hand smoke most likely happens at home,” the researchers noted.

“Infectious diseases and tobacco seems to be a deadly combination.”

The tragedy of children felled by others’ smoke is even greater when calculated in years of life lost, rather than lives lost.

One reason twice as many non-smoking women die is simply because they outnumber their male counterparts by 60 per cent.

But they are also, in the developing world, 50 per cent more likely to be exposed to harmful smoke.

Passing and enforcing smoke-free laws for public spaces could significantly reduce passive smoking mortality and health care costs, said lead researcher Annette Pruss-Ustun.

Currently, only 7.4 per cent of the world population lives in areas with serious smoke-free laws, and even in these jurisdictions compliance is spotty.

Where laws are enforced, exposure to second-hand smoke in high-risk settings, such as bars and restaurants, is cut by 90 per cent, earlier research has shown.

- AFP

How Your Lungs Work

In mechanical terms, our lungs can be described as the site of gas exchange: Oxygen–the fuel all the cells and organs of our body need to function–is extracted there from the air we inhale and infused into the bloodstream, to be distributed to other organs and tissues. With each exhalation, we dispose of the carbon dioxide that is the by-product of our bodily processes. In our lungs, in the course of a single day, an astonishing 8,000 to 9,000 liters of breathed-in air meet 8,000 to 10,000 liters of blood pumped in by the heart through the pulmonary artery. The lungs relieve the blood of its burden of waste and return a refreshed, oxygen-rich stream of blood to the heart through the pulmonary vein.

Below is a thumbnail of a healthy lung and two thumbnails of diseased lungs.

Healthy Lung (98 kb)	Lung Cancer (133 kb)	Emphysema Lung (77 kb)

To print the full-size images, just click on the image or link text and use the print function of your browser.

Lung Cancer

Smoking is responsible for almost 90% of lung cancers amongst men, and more than 70% amongst women. Worse, when you get lung cancer, you’re very likely to die from lung cancer. It’s 92% fatal among men, and 88% fatal among women. Smokers are 10 times more likely to die from lung cancer than a non-smoker. If you’ve smoked since a teenager, the lung cancer rate zooms to nineteen times higher. And men who smoke more than a pack a day have about 20 times the lung cancer rate of non-smokers. Cigarette smokers also run a much higher risk of being struck by many forms of cancer, including cancer of the mouth, larynx, and esophagus. Cigarette smoking is also associated with higher rates of cancer of the urinary bladder and kidney.

Emphysema

Emphysema is one of several chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. It causes abnormal swelling and destruction of lung tissue. Lungs maimed by emphysema eventually lose their elasticity. Breathing becomes a continuous agonizing struggle. And there’s little hope for a significant recovery once diagnosed. Lung tissue once destroyed by emphysema can never be replaced, turning its victims into respiratory cripples, who spend agonizing years gasping for breath.

Cigarette smoking is also associated with higher rates of peptic ulcers, stomach disorders, and periodontal disease.

Reasons and Excuses You are still Smoking

Why do you think that you are still smoking after all these years?

The thing that normally stops most people from making a decision to quit cigarettes is that they make excuses and reasons.

Stress

The biggest excuse that most of them use is probably that they smoke because of stress. It is usually the stress of their job, family, kids, and life. Stress used to be my friends excuse.

One of my friends used to smoke about eight years ago. They had a job that was really stressful and they used to smoke because they said they were stressed. And that is when I simply pointed out to my friend. Do you smoke on the weekends? My friend said yes, I still smoke on the weekend. I asked my friend if he still smokes when on vacation. And my friend said yes he is still smoking on vacation. Then I said to my friend, if you still smoke on the weekends, and when you’re on vacation. How can you say that you smoke because of stress? Isn’t this stress of the job gone when you’re on vacation and on the weekends?

He smoked the same amount day in and day out. And it is not like on a really stressful day he had 80 cigarettes and the following non-stressful day he had five cigarettes. On the weekends, during stress, not stressed he smoked the same amount of cigarettes. So where is the stress? It is a great excuse but that is all it is – an excuse.

To Relax

A lot of smokers tell me that smoking relaxes them.

Now if you know anything about nicotine, you know, it’s impossible to actually relax when you smoke, because nicotine is actually a stimulant.

When you inhale nicotine it goes into your bloodstream and goes everywhere including your heart. Your heart sees nicotine as a poison and it increases your heart rate by about 12 beats per minute trying to get rid of the poison. This is why even when you haven’t smoked a cigarette in a while you may notice heart palpitations or lightheadedness or dizziness, because the nicotine is a stimulant causing your heart and your body to react and try to get rid of it. Your stomach produces extra stomach acid every time you smoke cigarettes, about ½ a cup of extra acid for every 2 packs of cigarettes.

You have a powerful stimulant like nicotine and you also have other carcinogens that are stimulants. And if you add additional stimulants like caffeine or tea or coffee, you have at least three extremely powerful stimulants causing the body to be hyper excited. Is that person relaxed? Not even close. In fact, your body is working overtime trying to get rid of all the poisons and toxins, you just put into it. So it is absolutely impossible to smoke and physiologically relax. Any feeling of relaxation is just an illusion.

Will Power

Actually if you didn’t have any willpower, you wouldn’t ever get out of bed, you wouldn’t go to work, you wouldn’t make payments on a house, if you didn’t have any willpower you wouldn’t do anything. Willpower is what allows you to do the dozens of things that you do every day of your life, maybe even if you don’t want to do them. And you do that because you have to, that’s what willpower is! So actually, you do have lots of willpower. The only question is, are you going to start using it to quit cigarettes? Because I know, under the right set of circumstances you could quit just by using willpower alone. No gum, patches, acupuncture, hypnosis, or anything.

Pleasure

How many of the cigarettes that you smoke, do you actually enjoy?

Most say 4 or 5.

Well, it takes about 4 minutes to smoke a cigarette, so that’s 4 x 4, or 16 minutes of enjoyment.

Now ofcourse it’s decreasing your health, but what is your health when you get 16 minutes of pleasure or enjoyment from smoking a cigarette. And you’re suffering with coughing and shortness of breath, hacking up mucus each morning and not being able to do all the things you want to do. Oh yeah, and it smells but what’s personal hygiene. We get those 16 minutes of enjoyment? And you’re spending thousands of dollars but hey; you got the money you can afford it. And studies show that it can take an average of 14 years off your life but hey, what is 16 minutes of pure enjoyment? I mean, it’s worth it isn’t it?

I am Joking ☺