Exposure To Second Hand Smoke example essay topic

There are several ways an individual can quit smoking. How successful any one method will be depends on persons personality, how heavily addicted to cigarettes you are, and whether your family, social, school, and work environments will help or hinder your efforts to quit. About 85 to 95% of smokers who quit do it on their own. Studies of successful ex smokers have shown that support from others and regular exercise is two factors that improve the chances of success. There are different types of smokers too. Some smokers are casual smokers, who only smoke in a social scene, other types of smokers are depressed or stressed smokers, who smoke, because they feel that it relieves something in them, and finally there are addictive smoker, who do not know why they even started, but they cannot stop.

What these people do not realize is that the harm they are putting through their bodies. Today it is known that cigarette smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer and death in the United States. One researcher has described cigarette smoking as causing a chronic inflammatory disorder of the lower airways (Doll 901 911). When we breathe, air enters the upper airway through the nose and mouth, where the air is filtered, warmed, and humidified.

The inhaled air travels though the trachea to the lungs. Inside the lung there is a main stem called the bronchus and little air sacs called bronchioles. Oxygen is exchanged for carbon dioxide in the blood; blood then carries oxygen to all the body tissues (Sherman, 355). The respiratory system has several built in safeguards to protect it against disease. The filtering that takes place in the upper airway helps prevent infectious and irritating substances from entering the lung. The trachea and the lung produce mucus, which helps trap and carry away contaminants.

These contaminants are moved through the lungs by cilia, which are tiny hairs that beat rapidly back and fourth. When smoke is inhaled through the mouth, smokers automatically bypass the first safeguard, the filtering action of the nose. While smokers often produce more mucus in response to smoking, they are less able to move the mucus out of their respiratory system than nonsmokers are. This happens because cigarette smoking paralyzes and eventually destroys cilia.

It also changes the makeup of the mucus secreting glands and consequently the mucus itself. In addition, mucus glands sometimes become plugged and less able to produce mucus. The result is that smokers' mucus, contaminated with potentially harmful substances, is more likely to become trapped in the lung tissue. (Sherman 355) Smoking impairs lung growth and lung tissue in children and adolescents. Another type of lung growth impairment occurs in smokers aged 20 to 40. During this stage of life, the lungs undergo a type of growth called the plateau phase.

This phase is shortened in smokers, which shortens the time with which tobacco induced diseases develop. Smokers who take up smoking at younger ages are more apt to suffer smoking related disease after shorter periods than are smokers who begin smoking later in life. Twenty percent of people who smoke get heart disease (Peterson 215 218). Smokers in the age of 30 to 40 have an increased possibility of occurrence of heart attack. Smoking causes deterioration of elastic properties in aorta, which is the largest blood vessel in the body.

However, smoking actually lowers the rate of cholesterol in blood. It also had been proved that more a person smokes higher the chance of developing coronary heart disease and experiencing heart attack (Davis). Women are 50% more likely to have heart attack than male smokers are. In women who smoke the risk for a heart attack is about 50% greater than in male smokers; researchers speculate that tobacco smoke may increase cardiovascular disease in women through an effect on hormones that causes estrogen deficiency (Davis). Quitting smoking will rapidly decrease the risk of developing heart disease, but long-term smoking may still permanently damage arteries.

Studies continue to confirm the dangers of second hand smoke; one study reported that exposure to second hand smoke is just as dangerous in the workplace as it is at home. Regular exposure to passive smoke is now estimated to increase the risk of heart disease in the nonsmoker by between 25% and 91%, causing 30,000 to 60,000 deaths each year. According to one report nonsmokers who spend as little as a half hour in a smoke filled room suffer a serious drop in blood levels of antioxidants, such as vitamin C, which may be important for heart protection. Studies have now linked cigarette smoking to infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and Miscarriage (Whelan, 26) Women at greatest risk are those who smoke one or more packs a day and who started smoking before age 18 (Whelan, 81). Smoking also has a negative influence on reproduction. Smoking increases the risk for stillbirth and infant mortality by 33%.

Smoking also appears to reduce folate levels; a vitamin that is important for preventing birth defects. Experts believe that women who smoke may pass genetic mutations that increase cancer risks to their unborn babies (Stillman, 545) Fortunately, national birth statistics showed a continued decline in the number of women who smoke during pregnancy. An estimated four million children a year fall ill from exposure to second-hand smoke (Campbell 70-75). Parental smoking has been shown to affect the lungs of infants as early as the first two to 10 weeks of life and increases the risk for lung diseases, such as asthma, bronchitis, and pneumonia, by 50%. Maternal smoking is believed to be related to 37% of the cases of childhood meningococcal disease, an uncommon but potentially fatal infection. It has also been linked to abnormal lung function in children; the defects persist throughout life (Difranza Jr.

385 394). Environmental smoking worsens the condition of children with existing asthma and is thought to be responsible for 150,000 to 300,000 cases of lower respiratory infections every year. Pregnant women who smoke increase their child's risk for attention deficit disorder, conduct disorders, depression, substance abuse, and lower intellectual achievement. Parental smoking also has been linked to ear infections and eczema. (Whelan 82 89) It is too bad that after all the negative effects of smoking had been proved, people continue to smoke.

Moreover, still there is cigarette advertisement, which definitely will not decrease the number of smokers. There should be strict laws on the cigarette advertisement in order to withdraw adolescence of starting to smoke. I think that nicotine is one of the most stupid drugs ever found. It is somehow possible to justify the use of psychoactive or hallucinogenic drugs, which are considered to bring fun, while tobacco (nicotine) only has very negative effect on health without giving any pleasure to smoker.

Smoker just smokes cigarette, because he needs nicotine, which is in the system. Smoking has many effects that are harmful to the body. Smoking might not affect the body instantly but in the future smoking will have great impact on ones health. As smokers get older, the diseases they imposed upon themselves from smoking at an earlier age will severely hurt them, in fact, it might kill them at a far earlier age, and then they were supposed to go. I think, that there should be national programs aimed at decreasing the number of smokers, or at least (if it is possible) scientists should invents such a cigarettes that will not have negative effects on health. Anyway, smoking is a bad habit and people should strive to approach a day, when there will not be smokers at all..