Smoking Facts

Smoking Facts And Hazards

The major health risk smoking facts are well known. Smoking is not just bad for your health, it can kill. There is plenty of information out there about the main risks and if you didn't know that lung cancer and heart disease are associated with a higher risk in smokers, you must have been living under a rock for the past 20 years.

However, there are other facts about smoking that are less well known. Some of these may be essential motivators for you or those close to you who want to quit smoking.

Maybe lung cancer seems like something that would never happen to you, or not for so long into the future that it is hard to care. When we are young, we may feel this way. Life holds so many uncertainties, it may be hard to get motivated about something so far away. But some of the other hazards of smoking may be right around the corner, or even affecting you right now - even if you are young.

The first thing to know is that cancer can hit younger people too. Smoking-related cancers are more likely than some others to affect people in their 40s, for example. That is an age when many people still have kids at home who are dependent on them. It's not a great time to die.

As well as lung cancer, smoking is associated with higher risk of cancer in the mouth, throat and esophagus (the passage that leads to the lungs) - and also the colon, stomach, kidneys and many other parts of the body.

It is not just about smoke clogging up the lungs. There are a huge number of possible problems that can result from nicotine and other chemicals getting into the bloodstream. A commercially produced cigarette contains thousands of different chemicals, hundreds of which are toxic - i.e. poisonous. They can do untold damage when they build up in the body over a few months or years.

Other problems are caused by the organs being deprived of the oxygen that they need to function correctly. One example of this is the skin. The skin is fed by the bloodstream just like any other organ. When the blood does not contain enough oxygen to nourish it properly, it becomes wrinkled and unhealthy looking, causing a premature aging effect.

Smoking also affects the sexual organs. In women this can reduce fertility and make it harder to get pregnant. Of course it also affects the growing fetus if the woman does get pregnant and continues to smoke. So the best thing that you can do if you want a baby, is to stop smoking.

Male fertility may also be affected and in addition, smoking often contributes to impotence. Men in their 30s and 40s who smoke have a 50% higher chance of erectile dysfunction (impotence) than non-smokers of the same age.

Children are very sensitive to smoke and if you smoke in the house, your kids are likely to get more respiratory infections than the children of non-smokers. These infections are also likely to be more serious than for other kids. Their immune systems are lowered and they have a hard time recovering from disease.

Smoking can also have a bad effect on your career. For example, most people know that smokers take more time off work sick than non-smokers, plus they see smokers spending time in the parking lot taking a break while non-smokers are working. This creates a bad impression on the boss and resentment among colleagues.

Many companies prefer not to hire smokers even if they never take a cigarette break in working hours, just because of the sickness rates. In other companies, workers miss out on promotion or bonuses because they do not have the good health record of their non-smoking colleagues.

So the financial cost of smoking is not limited to the cost of cigarettes - which you already know is very high. When you quit, you will have a lot more money in your wallet or purse right away. You will also notice improvements in your health almost immediately.

Bookmark this page to come back and remind yourself of these smoking facts from time to time to keep your motivation to quit sky high!