Interesting Facts About Smoking

Smoking has been idolized in the past, presented as "cool" or "classy" or "sophisticated" behavior in film and television. In recent years, however, the public has discovered how life-threatening this nasty habit is to everyone.

Deaths

• Among all smoking-related deaths in the U.S. per year, 39 percent are female.

  It is estimated that smoking causes the deaths of 440,000 Americans each year, with 39 percent of these deaths being women.

Costs

• Much money is spent on health care due to smoking.

  The United States spends a staggering amount, $150 billion per year, on health care costs related to smoking, according to smoking-facts.net.

Ingredients

• Cigarettes contain 4,800 chemicals.

  Cigarettes contain more than 4,800 chemicals, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Sixty-nine of these chemicals have been proven to cause cancer.

History

• Rolling tobacco

  The earliest known people to use tobacco were Brazilians, who invented cigarettes by rolling tobacco leaves in paper more than 2,000 years ago.

Pregnancy considerations

• Smoking during pregnancy reduces the amount of oxygen and increases the amount of carbon monoxide the baby receives during the time when its brain and nervous system are developing, slowing its growth. This also, of course, endangers its health enormously.

Second-hand smoke

• According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 3,000 people who are nonsmokers die each year of health problems and diseases caused by exposure to second-hand smoke.