Smoking, as a “risk factor”, is indicated by cardiologists (these are specialists in cardiovascular diseases), oncologists (in cancer ), pulmonologists (in lung diseases), phthisiatricians (in tuberculosis). Smoking is a factor predisposing to the development of most diseases.

About the dangers of smoking

The insidiousness of smoking lies in the fact that those who are addicted to this bad habit do not fall ill immediately. Sometimes years pass until nicotine and other constituents of tobacco first cause functional, and then organic, irreversible changes in the smoker’s body.

Isn’t it better not to start smoking at all than to try to overcome your bad habit for many years?

The fact is that smoking, as a bad habit, develops according to the principle of a conditioned reflex, gradually becoming an insidious addiction, similar to that which occurs in patients with chronic alcoholism and drug addiction. scientists are increasingly talking about tobacco substance abuse as a disease that resembles alcoholism. A lot has been written about the dangers of smoking, but this will not be written often and not everywhere.

Carcinogens found in tobacco smoke: benzpyrene, benzathracene ; arsenic and sulfur dioxide, which, interacting with ammonia, forms very strong carcinogens (chemicals that can cause the development of a cancerous tumor).

In total, when smoking, more than 20 harmful active substances are formed, which are activated during combustion (during smoking) at a very high temperature and enter the smoker’s body. Tobacco tar contains over one and a half dozen substances with carcinogenic properties.

Tobacco smoke contains radioactive polonium-210, which has the greatest carcinogenic effect; radioactive lead and bismuth. Inhalation of arsenic trioxide alone, even without admixture of other carcinogens, causes lung cancer.

The products of tobacco combustion are retained in the respiratory organs of smokers, mainly in the bronchial mucosa. The movement of the ciliated epithelium of the bronchial mucosa is disturbed, which leads to a violation of the main function of the ciliated epithelium – to remove foreign particles from the respiratory tract that get there. Therefore, carcinogens linger in the bronchi for a long time, which gradually leads to a characteristic cough. Such prolonged irritation of the bronchi becomes fertile ground for the development of lung cancer.