A series of toxins shorten human life in every cigarette puff

Cigarette smoke contains many toxic chemicals that are harmful to human health. When cigarette smoke is inhaled through the lungs into the blood, it accumulates over time and becomes a condition and cause of cardiovascular diseases, respiratory infections, damage to blood vessels and causes many dangerous diseases that affect human health and life.

Cigarette smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals. Hundreds of them are harmful to health, 70 are carcinogenic, including addictive substances and toxic substances, divided into 4 main groups:

Nicotine: is a colorless substance that turns brown when burned and has an odor when exposed to air. Nicotine is absorbed through the skin, mouth and nasal mucosa or inhaled into the lungs. The average smoker takes in 1 to 2 mg of nicotine per cigarette. Smoking delivers nicotine quickly to the brain, within 10 seconds of inhalation.

Nicotine is addictive because it mainly acts on the central nervous system with the presence of nicotine receptors on nerve cells in the “reward center” of the brain. When smoking, nicotine is inhaled into the lungs, travels throughout the body, to the brain and stimulates the release of chemicals in the brain such as dopamine, serotonin, and noradrenaline. These chemicals create a feeling of euphoria, a happy mood, increased attention, increased cognitive activity, and short-term memory. The brain quickly realizes that it can use tobacco to stimulate the release of dopamine, thus initiating the process of smoking addiction.

Carbon monoxide (CO): CO is present in high concentrations in cigarette smoke and is absorbed into the blood, binding to hemoglobin (the oxygen-carrying substance in the blood) in red blood cells with an affinity 210 times stronger than oxygen. CO enters the blood quickly and takes the place of oxygen on red blood cells. When smoking, a number of red blood cells in the blood temporarily lose their ability to transport oxygen because CO has "taken over" their space. As a result, the body does not have enough oxygen to use.

Small particles in cigarette smoke : Cigarette smoke contains many gaseous and particulate irritants. These irritants cause structural changes in the bronchial mucosa leading to proliferation of bronchial glands, mucus-secreting cells and loss of ciliated cells. These changes increase mucus secretion and reduce the efficiency of mucociliary clearance. Most of these changes are reversible upon cessation of smoking.

Carcinogens: Cigarette smoke contains about 70 carcinogenic substances, such as aromatic compounds with closed rings, Benzopyrene or Nitrosamines. These chemicals affect the surface cells of the respiratory tract, causing chronic inflammation, tissue destruction, cell transformation leading to dysplasia, and then malignancy.

These toxins directly cause dangerous diseases and have been proven through many studies in the world as well as in Vietnam. Science proves that smoking 1 cigarette means losing 5.5 minutes of life. Normally, the average life expectancy of a smoker is 5 to 8 years shorter than that of a non-smoker. Smoking increases the mortality rate from 30 to 80%, mainly due to cancer (lung cancer), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular diseases, etc.

The level of increased risk depends on the age of starting smoking (the earlier you start smoking, the higher the risk), the average number of cigarettes smoked in packs per year, calculated by multiplying the average number of packs smoked per day by the number of years of smoking (the higher the number of packs smoked per year, the higher the risk), and the longer the duration of smoking, the greater the risk.

Passive smoking is also harmful to everyone, especially babies and children. These people are at high risk of respiratory infections, asthma, persistent coughs and otitis media. Statistics from the World Health Organization show that every year there are about 600,000 deaths worldwide due to passive smoking. Of these, 64% are women. It is estimated that for every 10 smokers who die, 1 person dies from inhaling passive smoke. In our country, every year there are 104,300 deaths due to tobacco-related diseases. Of these, passive smoking causes 18,800 deaths.

To contribute to improving the quality of life, each person should voluntarily not smoke at home, at work and in public places where smoking is prohibited; at the same time, strongly oppose smoking in places where there are children, pregnant women and the elderly. Let's say no to tobacco together and join hands to build a healthy society to repel the dangers of tobacco.

Minh Trang

Source: https://baophapluat.vn/loat-chat-doc-rut-ngan-cuoc-song-con-nguoi-trong-tung-hoi-thuoc-la-post545543.html