Smoking Facts - Effects Of Smoking

Smoking is consuming the smoke from smoldering tobacco. There are other stimulants and drugs that can be smoked, but if there is no further indication is given, with "smoking" smoking tobacco intended. Smoking is injurious to health; the smoking addiction which occurs is caused by the substance nicotine. The "pull" found in a cigarette is in fact a signal from the body towards the brains that the body is to nicotine.

Smoking may inhaling, whereby the smoke is sucked into the lungs, and non-inhaling, whereby the smoke is only sucked into the mouth. Cigarettes are usually inhaling smoked cigars and pipe non-inhaling.

History


Smoking in ancient times
Historians have discovered sources that illustrate the smoking before the tobacco was discovered in Europe and the Mediterranean. Hippocrates wrote that the smoke of different plant species would be beneficial against certain ailments. The Scythians and Thracians would hit as Greek and Egyptian sources in ecstasy by intoxicating fumes they breathed. The discovery of eg nicotine in Egyptian mummies by Balabanova was hotly contested in scientific circles. Generally believed that the Egyptians had no tobacco before it was discovered by Columbus. For the original inhabitants of the American continent is smoking tobacco long been a part of the culture. Of the Mayans are known already smoked around the year 500. Presumably was tobacco in the early Indian culture is only one of the smoke means. To get into the rapture tobacco was mixed with extracts of mushrooms and other plants.

Discovery of tobacco by Columbus
At the end of the 15th century, Christopher Columbus was the first Westerner in contact with the tobacco plant. On November 6, 1492, he set two Spaniards, Rodrigo de Jerez and Luis de Torres, ashore on the island Guanahana in the Bahamas. To their surprise, they saw that the inhabitants of the island dried herbs rolled smoked. Especially Jerez found this an interesting face, and back in Spain in his home town of Ayamonte he walked ostentatiously to smoke on the street. He was promptly arrested on suspicion of sorcery. It took seven years before he could prove his innocence and was released. All this could not prevent the practice has since spread to Europe and beyond over the world.

Smoking is a normal phenomenon
Until the early 20th century, especially the cigar and pipe in vogue. Later, especially the popular cigarette; for its mass production since the industrial revolution grown tobacco industry accountable. Until about 1975 experienced smoking a rise in all facets of public life. Around 1945, it was a very normal and friendly gesture to a 14-year-old boy presenting a cigarette with the question "Do you smoke before?" Cinemas, buses, trams and trains were equipped with ashtrays. Even in zeppelins, where smoking by the hydrogen gas was very dangerous, a smoking ban was not found feasible. Programs on television were often presented by a smoking reporter. Until the 80's, when many a barber and beauty cigarettes on a glass table. In primary and secondary schools teachers were smoking for the class (although that was often forbidden); some schools in higher education also smoked the students during lectures. Dignitaries were already fuming interviewed by journalists smoking. Even Queen Juliana was regularly smoking on screen. A smoke-free workplace was in office, a major exception.

Early objections
Yet there was much earlier said that smoking was undesirable.

  • Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, wrote in 1908 that a scout must not smoke. He wrote: "No boy starts smoking because he likes it, but because he thinks thereby to resemble a grown man. In fact, he looks like a lout. "
  • Thomas Edison did not object to pipes and cigars, cigarette smokers but did not have him to apply.
  • Under the Nazi regime was in the thirties Germany and Austria because of public health by discouraging government unsuccessfully waged against smoking. Already in 1929 the German physician Fritz Lickint had found a statistical link between smoking and lung cancer. In 1939 and 1943 he published his comprehensive overview Tabak und Organismus (1000 pages). Other German doctors as Franz Hermann Müller from Cologne found a link between tobacco and cancer of the mouth, lips, throat and esophagus.
The railways were a notable exception; here were traditionally separate compartments for smokers and non-smokers. In buses, smoking was generally prohibited. Even in places where hazardous substances was worked, as in a garage, has not smoked.

Effect on the health (Smoking effects)
Around 1950 by Sir Richard Doll was the link between smoking and lung cancer demonstrated earlier was found by German researchers, but was not made known in the West. Many people had suffered in this war by smoking in newsprint twisted shaggies and now came a countermovement. Already in the fifties in the Netherlands reacted doctor Lenze Meinsma the KWF against smoking. Only in 1971, he received support from fellow doctors, who smoked first all yourself.

Downturn
In the 70 's came across Europe were to the warning on the packaging of non-standing, that smoking harms health. The warnings were more explicit and more intrusive over the years. Over the next few years smoking was quickly becoming restricted. Tobacco advertising was, step by step, prohibited. Smoking in almost all aircraft was forbidden in the 1990s; a few years later followed a smoking ban in the Dutch public transport.

Netherlands and Belgium in early 21st century should no longer be sold tobacco to persons under 16 years of age, each employee has the right to a smoke-free workplace and public buildings are all non-smoking. The only exception is the hospitality industry, where in Belgium (cafes where less than half of the revenue as a result of food unless there is a specially equipped separate room is) still may be non-smoking. As of July 2011, it is also forbidden to smoke in cafes in Belgium. Since 1 January 2014 should no more be sold tobacco to persons under 18 years of age.

In Netherlands is 1 July 2008 after 50 years of discussion a final ban on smoking in entertainment options in effect. Cafes and restaurants do have the ability to set up special areas, such as a canopy outside, with heating by hot air in the winter. In July 2010, the smoking ban readjusted by (outgoing) Minister Ab Klink (Minister of health, welfare and sport). The change has been made is that in places of entertainment without staff anyway you can smoke.

Smoking and Health

Smoking Facts, Effects Of Smoking, quit smoking

While tobacco has always been a stimulant, it initially was also used as medicine. It was used for colds, rheumatism, fever, snake bites, ulcers and even syphilis. The first alarms against tobacco dating from 1602, in the publication "Work for Chimny-Sweepers or A Warning for Tabacconists" of Philaretes about the dangers of smoking. In our region the dangers of tobacco were known early. In a document of Sint-Agatha-Berchem from 1666 describes that the pub owner Philip Drying died by the excessive use of tobacco and brandy. Subsequent alarms against tobacco dating back to 1809, when the chemist Vauquelin warned that contains tobacco poison. Another reason why one could be against smoking was associated with crime. Only when the mid-20th century, the first serious scientific reports were published, came the opponents who opposed the cigarette for health reasons.

The most important toxic substances in tobacco smoke are as follows:

  • tar - causing the smoker's cough is a carcinogen
  • nicotine - an addictive substance including the cause of high blood pressure, and damage and narrowing of the blood vessels (atherosclerosis)
  • carbon monoxide - creates a poor physical condition, the vascular damage
  • nitric oxide (NO) - damages the vessel wall, and put in the vessel wall, a physiological mechanism in motion that leads to atherosclerosis.

Tobacco smoke contains numerous other toxic substances. Some are a result of the way the tobacco is grown (pesticides), others are 'naturally' in the tobacco plant or resulting from incomplete combustion. A small list: nitrosamines, formaldehyde, arsenic, cyanide, acetone (nail polish remover), ammonia, acetic acid, DDT (a pesticide), polonium (radioactive element) and benzene compounds. The most important diseases which are wholly or largely by smoking caused lung cancer, COPD and cardiovascular disease. Statistical studies show that smoking (direct and indirect) is responsible for many deaths, and increases the risk of many diseases. Diseases that are promoted by smoking are, inter alia:

  • diseases of the heart and blood vessels (including myocardial infarction, angina, claudication, Raynaud's phenomenon, stroke (cerebrovascular accident), TIA (transient ischemic attack), atrial fibrillation (a heart rhythm disorder), impotence and other atherosclerosis. The Buerger's disease is almost exclusively seen in smokers.
  • diseases of the airways (bronchitis, COPD, emphysema)
  • disorders in the oral cavity (periodontitis) and almost all types of cancer (especially mouth cancer, throat cancer, lung cancer, testicular cancer, bladder cancer)
  • thyroid diseases, Graves' disease, among other
  • bone, muscle and joint diseases, including osteoporosis (brittle bones) and back problems
  • reduction of the mind or damage the brains
  • accelerated deterioration of the auditory
  • loss of vision (vision loss) by damaging the macula (macular degeneration) and blindness by damaging the blood vessels in the eye
  • slightly increased risk of Alzheimer's disease
  • Dupuytren's disease is associated with, inter alia, smoking.

A heavy smoker can have the following characteristics; an altered tooth color (yellow teeth), bad breath, change in color of the hands (especially the fingers), a colored mustache, premature aging of the skin (wrinkles), increased risk of hair loss and poorer overall physical condition. Smoking is also partly responsible for the slow healing of wounds and complications from bacterial infections.

Smoking is particularly dangerous for the unborn child, and reduces the chance of pregnancy dramatically (infertility). Smoking may include contributions to: damage to the egg and sperm, miscarriage (probability is 1.5 to 3 times as large), SIDS in babies, birth defects, low birth weight of newborn babies, allergic symptoms in children. Smoking during pregnancy also causes an increased risk of later behavioral problems in children.

Smokers lungs
A smoker's cough occurs when someone smokes long. The tar that enters into the lungs when a puff of tobacco products taken (eg, a cigarette), locks on to the lung tissue. In the lungs, there is a huge number of cilia. These cilia have the task of driving from the lungs of waste contaminated with mucus. The cilia are damaged by the tar so that the lungs can no longer be properly cleaned and dirt from accumulating. This debris must then coughed - behold the smokers cough.

Nicotine, tar and many other substances that are released during the burning of tobacco, enter the lungs. The aggressive gases from tobacco smoke penetrate the natural mucus layer of the lungs going. These substances damage the cells; the cells die. The result is that many white blood cells coming to help to build the cells. In people who smoke a lot not normal cells come back, but take mucus-producing cells in the blank spaces. These produce very much mucus, so that the pollution can be carried into the lungs. However, the amount of mucus is too large for the cilia; they can not take it anymore and paralyzed. Nicotine also causes the cilia become paralyzed.

The cilia perform the slime with no more dirt off; for they are paralyzed and do almost nothing. The amount of mucus can now only be removed by coughing, the "smoker's cough." Especially morning smokers have experienced: the cilia that their work may have somewhat do have managed to bring some of the mucus upwards. This mucus is ready to be coughed out. Many smokers will therefore mornings should cough, more than during the day is the case. Each time there is coughing, decreases the elasticity of the lung tissue. At some point, the elongation is almost completely out of the tissue. This disease called COPD and can be severely disabling if not stopped smoking. The smoker's cough can also work as a defense mechanism. A part of the toxic substances is eliminated cough, instead of included in the body, however, this does not compensate for the damage that has already been done, and likely to be increased yet.

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