This weekend at my house my parents held a party for my nephew, Mason. During the party I saw many of my family members smoking. My two brothers even smoked. Honestly, I don't know why people smoke. To ruin your lungs out of sheer pressure is a shame. Yes, I can say the same and say that I was pressured to try it once. However, when I did try smoking it wasn't anything special. It made me wonder why people smoke in the first place.
Our lungs is an organ in our body that we can not live without. We use it every second of our life yet, we have people smoking occasionally if not daily. What I've learned about our lungs in my Anatomy and Physiology Class is that we have two lobes. The lobe on our left is only has two sections because most of the heart is located towards the left side of the body. Then our right lobe has three sections. Air enters through the trachea then down into our lobes. As the air goes in our lobes our diaphragm pushes down, and from there it goes into our bronchi then bronchioles. At the ends of these thousand like tree branches are the alveolis. The Alveoli is where the extraction of oxygen occurs and carbon dioxide begins to leave the body by exhaling with the help of the diaphragm again.
How smoking affects your lungs can be one or more by these five reasons that I have found. The five causes are:
Loss of lung elasticity - When you inhale the lungs expand and they are pulled back to their original state by the elastic tissues lining their inner walls. When you smoke, these elastic tissues get damaged due to deposits of tar. After a period of continued smoking, these tissues get so rigid that they fail to perform their function, so the lungs stay in an expanded state making it difficult to exhale. This condition is called emphysema.
Mucus clogging - The cigarette tar sticks to the thin hair like cilia along the nasal and throat passage causing them to get clogged. The function of cilia is to push the dirt accumulated mucus onto the mouth or nose for disposal. Once the cilia gets clogged it can no longer perform its function properly leading to mucus accumulation in the throat and nasal passage. Smoker cough is a common symptom among regular smokers, which is an attempt by the body to forcibly release the clogged mucus. This is how smoking affects your lungs by clogging up its protection from impurities and chemicals.
Reduction in dirt filtering - Another side effect of clogged cilia is that they fail to filter out the harmful chemicals in the cigarette smoke, with time these chemicals start accumulating in the linings of aveoli (air sacs) in the lungs. A clogged aveoli is dangerous because it hampers the oxygen and carbon di-oxide exchange with blood leading to decreased oxygen supply to the heart.
Air sacs malfunction - The air sacs lose their elasticity because of tar deposits and hence fail to expand and contract with each breath leading to congested air pockets. Many air sacs rupture because of undue pressure caused by these air pockets.
Carcinogenic deposits in the lungs - Continued deposits of tar along the linings of the lungs (over extended periods) leads to cell degeneration. Most of the chemicals present in the tar are carcinogenic in nature and hence are toxic to the living cells in the inner walls of the lungs. With time the accumulation of toxic chemicals forces the body to create a tumor around the affected area. (quicksmokingaddiction)
Smoking is not worth it. Sure, you may think that it's cool now, but later in the future you will regret it. What's even worse is that if you're smoking by loved ones you're indirectly making them smoke too. If you're wondering if there's a safe level that you could tolerate to avoid second hand smoking there actually isn't a safe leve. The best way is to avoid it.
According to cancer.gov the definition of secondhand smoking is:
Secondhand smoke (also called environmental tobacco smoke, involuntary smoke, and passive smoke) is the combination of “sidestream” smoke (the smoke given off by a burning tobacco product) and “mainstream” smoke (the smoke exhaled by a smoker)
People can be exposed to secondhand smoke in homes, cars, the workplace, and public places, such as bars, restaurants, and recreational settings. In the United States, the source of most secondhand smoke is from cigarettes, followed by pipes, cigars, and other tobacco products
The amount of smoke created by a tobacco product depends on the amount of tobacco available for burning. The amount of secondhand smoke emitted by smoking one large cigar is similar to that emitted by smoking an entire pack of cigarettes.
As you can see, smoking is just not worth it. I can honestly say that in my life time, I've only tried smoking twice and ever since then I've chosen not to smoke. It's not worth ruining my life and I intend to live by that rule.
Works Cited
No comments:
Post a Comment