Why Smoking is Bad For You
In the first half of the twentieth century, cigarettes were practically put in baby food. However, since then, people have been continually informed how terribly smoking can affect your health as well as those around you. While quitting smoking can seem like a hellacious experience worse than death, once you really understand what’s in those addictive little sticks and what the consequences could be, there’s a chance quitting won’t sound so bad.
As you may have suspected, cigarettes aren’t just tobacco rolled up in paper with a little cotton filters to siphon out the bad stuff. As a matter of fact, the filter that’s ‘supposed’ to make cigarettes safer is typically made out of cellulose acetate, more commonly known as camera film. The fibers from the cellulose can break off, lodging themselves in your lungs.
However, the filter is hardly the worst thing about smoking cigarettes. Tobacco companies use a varying cocktail consisting of thousands of chemicals to create the modern day cigarette. Here’s just a few of the more commonly known ones that help make cigarettes extra addictive while being incredibly bad for you.
Dangerous Chemicals in Cigarettes / Tobacco
- Formaldehyde – Used to preserve dead things
- Polonium – Known cancer-causing radioactive agent
- Lead – Used in paint until its poisonous qualities were discovered and it got banned for public use
- Methoprene – Insecticide
- DDT – Also an insecticide that’s been banned many places worldwide
- Napthalene – Primary chemical in mothballs
- Cyanide – Poisonous to most living things
- Arsenic – Also a poison, but most commonly found in rat poison
- Butane – The flammable gas found in lighters
When continually inhaled into the body, these ingredients (as well as thousands more) have the potential to cause a range of health problems. Besides old cigarette smell, there are diseases and health risks associated with smoking. Listed below are a few of them.
Diseases and Health Risks Associated with Smoking
- Cancer throughout the body
- Weakened heart leading to strokes and heart attacks
- Premature ageing; Decreases lung capacity
- Lower libido
- Erectile dysfunction
- Calcium depletion causing brittle bones and bad teeth
- Cataracts
Nicotine and cigarette addiction is a hard habit to break. However, leveraging your health against such tremendously powerful drugs is a dangerous and unnecessary risk to take.
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