Tobacco: A Deadly Habit

The Deadly Habit

Todd Davidson

April 12, 2012

tcda223@uky.edu

Today in the United States one out of five adults are practicing a behavior that will kill nearly half of them. Tobacco use is responsible for 1 out of 5 deaths each year in the United States. More deaths are caused each year by this behavior than deaths from HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined.  

Tobacco use primarily effects the lungs and heart causing heart attacks, stroke, vascular disease, hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, including emphysema and chronic bronchitis, and cancer.  The mouth, larynx, esophagus and pancreas also become highly susceptible to cancer. While it was widely assumed smoking was a health hazard, it wasn’t until 1964 and the US Surgeon General’s release of a report called Smoking and Health, where the unarguable link between smoking and increased risk of heart disease and respiratory cancers was clearly revealed. This became the first significant warning to raise public awareness that smoking was an important public health concern. The report jump-started extensive advertising and education programs in an effort directly influence current and future generations to quit smoking on their own.  As a result, we have seen tobacco use decline quite significantly over the past 40 years.

There are two components to tobacco that have long terms affect on the users of the drug. The first affect and reason cigarettes are so popular is because of the highly addictive nicotine in tobacco. Nicotine is absorbed by the linings of the mouth and respiratory tract and travels quickly to the heart and brain. Once you become addicted to nicotine your body becomes reliant on the drug and one will experience withdrawal symptoms without it. Nicotine raises blood pressure; heart rate and can also cause spasms in the blood vessels of the heart.

The next component is tar, the residue from burning tobacco that condenses in the lungs in smokers. Tars contribute to cancer and lung diseases through their tendency to damage cilia, an important part of the lungs responsible for sweeping the lungs and bronchi clear of microbes, irritants and toxic substances. Damage to cilia and other respiratory tract linings make the lungs more susceptible to infectious diseases like bronchitis, influenza and pneumonia.

There are rapid effects of smoking that also have immediate impacts on the cardiovascular system. Carbon monoxide, a toxic gas in cigarette smoke, interferes with the oxygen-carrying capacity of red blood cells leading to oxygen shortages in the heart. Toxic gasses in cigarette smoke also raise total blood cholesterol levels and reduce levels of HDL cholesterol. Tobacco smoke when breathed, either from the end of a lit cigarette or exhaled by a smoker, is highly toxic and contains more than 50 chemical compounds that are known to cause cancer. This smoke is also known as second-hand smoke and has become a great topic of debate regarding the effects on non-smokers and the environment.