Questions About Smoking Tobacco & Health

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking is a dangerous activity that harms nearly every organ in the body. It states that smoking is responsible for an estimated 443,000 deaths in the United States, or almost one in five deaths annually. Some people may have some questions about tobacco smoking and health.

What Makes Tobacco so Harmful?

• According to the American Cancer Society, the tobacco leaves used to produce cigarettes contain radioactive materials, which means that cigarette smoke contains small amounts of radioactive materials, too. When smokers inhale cigarette smoke, they ingest these radioactive materials, which build up in the lungs over time, causing increasing levels of radiation that may be a key factor in the reason smokers get lung cancer. Aside from this, cigarette smoke is a mixture of chemicals produced by the burning of tobacco and the additives used in making it. For instance, tobacco smoke contains tar, which is composed of more than 4,000 chemicals, 60 of which are known to be carcinogenic. Some of the chemicals found in cigarette smoke include ammonia, methanol, formaldehyde, cyanide and benzene.

How Does Smoking Affect Pregnant Women?

• Women who smoke while pregnant risk the lives and good health of their unborn children. Smoking while pregnant increases the chance of having a miscarriage, having a premature delivery, stillbirth or having a child with a low birth weight, and it increases the chance of sudden infant death syndrome. When a pregnant woman smokes, the harmful chemicals enter her bloodstream and pass into the baby's body. A mother can also transfer the harmful chemicals through breastfeeding.

How Does Smoking Affect the Lungs?

• Smoking causes some lung diseases that are just as bad as cancer. For example, chronic bronchitis is a lung disease that causes the airways to secrete too much mucus, forcing the smoker to cough frequently. Emphysema is another deadly result of smoking. This condition destroys a person's ability to breathe by significantly decreasing the amount of oxygen reaching the blood. This causes the smoker to constantly gasp for breath and often requires the use of oxygen tubes inserted into the nasal cavity to help supply the required oxygen.

Are Cigarettes Really Addictive?

• Yes, cigarettes are addictive because they contain nicotine, which is what causes smoking addiction. Nicotine causes smokers to crave cigarettes until they become dependent on nicotine. Any attempt to stop smoking after a nicotine addiction has been established leads to psychological and physical symptoms that include headaches, nervousness, irritability and insomnia. Nicotine is a poison that can kill when taken in large doses by paralyzing breathing muscles.