Did you know that each year in the United States more than 480,000 people die do to a tobacco related illness? When you factor all this up it means that 1 out of every 5 deaths in the United States is due to tobacco. In fact, cigarettes kill more Americans than alcohol, HIV, guns, car accidents, and illegal drugs. People that smoke die at a younger age than people that don’t smoke. Smoking can shorten your life anywhere from 11 to 12 years. Most people think that smoking only causes cancer, which later leads to your death, but there is much more to it than that.
Smoking not only causes cancer, but it can damage every organ in the body. It can damage your lungs, heart, skin, eyes, blood vessels, and bones. The sad fact is that most people know these facts and they still just continue to use tobacco. Below, you will learn some more unnerving facts about the dangers of using tobacco and how it can affect your life.
How Does Smoking Affect Cancer Risk?
Cancer is a major disease throughout the United States that consumes a lot of lives. What you probably don’t know is that tobacco accounts for around 30% of all cancer deaths in the United States. 80% of lung cancer deaths are the result of smoking. Research and studies show that lung cancer is one of the hardest forms of cancers to treat and is without a doubt the most deadly. Smoking not only puts you at risk of lung cancer, but it could also cause mouth, kidney, liver, bladder, stomach, and pancreas cancer.
How Does Smoking Affect Your Bones?
Recent studies were conducted and concluded that smoking can greatly decrease a smoker’s bone density. Smoking along with alcohol consumption can put your body at a risk of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a condition in which the bones become extremely weak and more likely to fracture. The study showed that major bone loss has been discovered in men and women who smoke heavily. The study also showed that individuals who did manage to quite smoking reduced their risk for lower bone mass, but it takes several years of non-tobacco use to lower a former smoker’s risk.
Effects To The Lungs And Breathing
It really should be no big secret that smoking can have adverse effects on the lungs and breathing. After all, you are inhaling a cloud of tobacco over and over again. Every puff of a cigarette that you take can scar and damage your lungs. Long-term smoking can cause COPD, which causes wheezing, shortness of breath, tight chest, and other symptoms. Emphysema is also another well-known disease that can be associated with smoking. This is a condition in which the walls between the air sacs in your lungs loose their ability to stretch. This makes it very difficult to breath.
Alternatives To Smoking
Over the years there have been tons of products developed to help individuals quit smoking. One of the most popular and most effective products has been the e juice, which is a safer alternative to smoking. However, users need to know that long-term use of these alternative products can also lead to severe side effects. While the long-term side effects of e-cigarettes are not entirely clear, it is believed that they could lead to cancer. Also, some of these products contain nicotine. Therefore, they’ll share the same potential side effects as traditional cigarettes.
This includes blurred vision, headache, dizziness and even nervousness. Nicotine gum and e-cigarettes should not be used for the long term.