SMOKING, BLOOD VESSELS, AND DEATH

Most people know that smoking is bad for your lungs and can cause cancer. However, fewer may be aware of the effects of smoking on the heart and the circulatory system—the arteries and veins that carry the blood throughout the body.

Cigarette smoking is the main preventable cause of premature death in the developed world. It accounts for nearly 440 000 deaths every year in the United States.When you smoke, toxic chemicals from tobacco enter your bloodstream. Some of these chemicals send signals to your heart to beat harder and faster. Smoking also causes blood vessels to constrict (become more narrow), forcing blood to travel through a smaller space. Both of these effects cause high blood pressure. Smoking also lowers high-density lipoprotein (good cholesterol) in your body and increases the likelihood of plaques (fatty buildups) collecting on the inside of blood vessels, a condition called atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). Smoking also increases the risk of thrombosis (blood clots blocking a blood vessel). Over time, these effects increase the risk of having a myocardial infarction (heart attack).

Smoking can also increase the risk of having a stroke (sudden blockage of blood circulation in the brain). A stroke is usually caused by a blood clot getting lodged in the blood vessels supplying the brain with blood and oxygen. When this happens, brain cells begin to die. This can cause permanent brain damage or even death. Women who smoke and use oral contraceptives (birth control pills) are at a much higher risk of developing heart disease or having a stroke than women taking oral contraceptives who do not smoke.

Stop smoking cigarettes

Cigarette smoking contributes to osteoporosis, as well as a host of other medical conditions. Perhaps concern about osteoporosis will be the final thing that will convince patients to stop smoking.

There are now many studies that show negative effects of cigarette smoking on the bone. One longitudinal study of 116,229 female nurses found the age-adjusted relative risk for hip fracture was 1.3 in current smokers. Ten years after smoking cessation, the risk was reduced. Part of the risk was explained by changes in body weight.

The graph is based on relative risks from a meta-analysis of 50,232 men and women around the world, showing rates of hip fractures in smokers vs non-smokers. The risk of any osteoporotic fracture, and especially hip fracture, is increased in smokers. The relative increase was attenuated after adjustment for bone density, but still in older men and women the fracture risk was about 60% higher in smokers than in non-smokers.

Smoking!!

Smoking leads to the greatest number of problems of any drug in use in the world today. Smoking contributes to more than 400,000 deaths each year in the United States. These deaths are mainly the result of increased numbers of lung cancers as well as increased numbers of cases of atherosclerotic heart disease and emphysema of the lung. Smoking increases the risk for cancers of the bladder, pancreas, kidney, and cervix. There is an increased risk for gastritis and gastric ulceration in persons who smoke. Cataracts of the crystalline lens of the eye occur with increased frequency in smokers.

Young women who are pregnant and who smoke put their fetuses at increased risk for decreased birth weight, premature birth, and perinatal mortality. The risk for spontaneous abortion is increased with maternal smoking. Fetal deaths late in gestation are increased 50% in mothers who smoke more than 3 cigarettes per day.
Normal lung, gross.
Small cell anaplastic (oat cell) carcinoma of lung, gross.
Squamous cell carcinoma of lung, gross.
Emphysema, centrilobular type, gross.
Emphysema, representing a late 20th century version of "The Masque of the Red Death" in Edgar Allen Poe's short story.
Composite photograph with a narrowed coronary artery at the left and a markedly narrowed coronary artery at the right, microscopic.
Pelvis of kidney, urothelial carcinoma, gross.
Acute gastric ulcerations, gross.
Hyaline membrane disease in the lung of a premature neonate, microscopic.

post by, Lai

Life as a Smoker

Everyone knows that "smoking is bad for you". You know that if you start smoking that 1/3 of you will eventually die from it. And for the most part, that's about all you know. Is this enough reason to not smoke? No, it's not, and here's why.

Teenagers are immortal. Teenagers live forever. At least that's the way it seemed when I was a teenager. People's perception of time is logarithmic and when your 18 a "half lifetime" is 9 years. Your parents are 2-3 half lifetimes older than you and your grandparents are 4-6 half lifetimes older than you and in your mind that is like eternity and beyond the scope of your imagination. Thus, in your mind, the health effect form smoking are so far off in the future that it's beyond the limits of your imagination. Besides, surely by then they will cure cancer, right?

People of my generation (I'm 43) have a half lifetime of 21 years. We are looking at best at one more half lifetime of having good sex and then a half lifetime of growing old and dying. We are past the age where it is obvious that smoking is a bad idea. For those of you who don't know it, if you don't smoke before you're 20 you won't start. By the time you get to 25 you have developed the mental skills to be able to resist the social pressures to start. That's my theory at least. But the facts are that people over 20 don't start smoking. Smokers come from teen smokers who can't quit.

However, there are a lot of other reasons to not smoke other than taking a chance with cancer and heart attacks. These reasons are actually a lot stronger and affect you a lot sooner and affect all smokers. And I want to talk with you now about these reasons to lay a logical foundation as to why you don't want to be a Nicobrain.

post by, Lai

Experience of my friend...

Hi, today i want talk with you about 'how' and 'why' my friend decide to quit smoking.

According to my friend, he start smoking since Form 1. The reason that why he will smoke is influence by his friends. After he try the first Smoke, he think that the feeling is very good and after that he already be a smoking addiction.

Now he success quit smoking already. The reason that why he decide to stop smoking is smoking cause sore throat until no voice to speaking. Actually he had 3 times of the serious sore throat, and the last time the doctor tell him that is very serious and need to do operation, if he don't want do operation, he must quit smoking as fast as possible and take some medicine. Therefore, he decide to quit smoking to keep away the disease.

He take almost 3 months to quit smoking. During the period he quit smoking, he think that the days are most suffering. Firstly, he use the nicotine gum to help him reduce smoking. After 2 months, he just eat the nicotine gum and don't smoking already. Then, he change the nicotine gum that the low nicotine contain one. After 3 months, he already success to quit smoking.
He tell me that, smoking really waste many money. Not only use the money to buy cigarettes and when want quit smoking also need money to buy the nicotine gum and it cost very expensive.

post by, Lai

ADVANTAGE IF YOU STOP SMOKING

-risk of heart disease will decline if you stop smoking

-in a year, risk will decline a lot. after 10 -20 year it would equal those who no used to smoke.

Smoking causes disease!

Smoking not only a habit that will let people addicted. It also will bring many causes for people whether you have smoking or not. Smoking harms almost every organ in your body, but because it happens gradually, you probably don't notice. The strain put on your body by smoking often causes years of suffering.

These are just a few of the harmful effects of smoking.

- Emphysema is an illness that slowly rots your lungs. People with emphysema often get bronchitis again and again, and suffer lung and heart failure.
-Lung cancer is caused by chemical in tar. Most lung cancers are caused by smoking. Smoking damages a gene called p53, and stops it from protecting your cells, allowing lung cancer to develop.
- Heart disease and strokes are also more common among smokers than non-smokers. One in three deaths from heart disease in people under 65 years are caused by smoking.
- Peripheral vascular disease (PVD) occurs when blood vessels in your legs or arms become blocked. It causes pain and some smokers end up having their limbs amputated.
- Tobacco smoke can lead to disabilities such as blindness, hip fractures and painful stomach ulcers.

post by, Lai