Smoking

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate August 2001

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Tobacco Smoking Many Americans today are smoking willingly, disregarding the consequences. But what are the consequences and its outcome? Well the outcome is very deadly. Every year over 40,000 Americans die from smoke related causes. The most significant health hazards that tobacco-smoking produces are heart diseases, lung cancer, emphysema, and complication in pregnancy.

The use of tobacco increases the heart rate 10 to 20 beat per minute, and it constricts the blood vessels causing an increase in blood pressure. Close to 75 percent of coronary heart disease cases are due to cigarette smoking. Within that 75 percent, about 24 percent or 120,000 of those patients die annually. Compared to nonsmokers, smokers in their thirties and forties have a heart attack rate that is five times higher. The more a person smokes the higher chance they will have of experiencing a heart attack and developing coronary heart disease.

As a result of smoking tobacco, there has been an enormous increase in lung cancer cases.

About 85 percent of cancer patients developed lung cancer from smoking. Cigarette smoking is responsible for about 30 percent of all cancer deaths. The reason why tobacco smoke causes cancer is that 60 of the 4,000 substances found in tobacco smoke are associated with cancer or tumor formation. Regular exposure to second-hand smoke increases the chances of the nonsmokers of getting lung cancer by 25 percent. In a government survey, each year 3,000 people develop lung cancer from second-hand smoke. Smokers who smoke low-tar cigarettes are at a higher risk of developing a deadly lung cancer called adenocarcinoma because they inhale deeper, bringing particles to the smallest and most defenseless tissues in the lungs. Smoking mentholated cigarettes has a even greater risk of developing lung cancer in males, but not in females. "Cigarette tar found in...