Cigarette smoking: A Threat To Your Health

                                          Cigarette Smoking : A Threat To Your Health

                                                        By: Jessa Marie Torrefiel

                                                                      2Regis

            Cigarette smoking kills half of all life time smokers. It is a perfect type of pleasure that leaves one unsatisfied and wanting for more. What more can one ask for? It is also a form of addiction where people of different ages tend to adhere. According to the statistics, cigarette smoking is by far the leading cause of premature or untimely death here in the Philippines. Smoking can endanger one’s health because it can cause respiratory damage, nervous breakdown and cardiovascular failure.

            Smoking can bring serious respiratory damage specifically lung cancer and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). Lung cancer is caused by the build-up of nicotine ( a chemical found in tobacco) inside the lungs which is accompanied by extreme pain and continued fits of cough while COPD is a disease wherein the lungs loses its normal elasticity and would apt to  constriction of the bronchioles. If it is left untreated, it can lead to sudden death. Secondly, smoking can bring about nervous breakdown like self disorientation and mental crash. The brain releases dopamine (a happy hormone) when a person is happy but high levels of tobacco can produce excessive amounts of dopamine. As a result, normal activities no longer produce the sensation of pleasure they once did, that’s why smoking addicts feel depressed and sick without their obsession and if not prevented, one might consider checking in the Mental Hospital. Lastly, smoking can trigger cardiovascular failure such as Atherosclerosis and Myocardial Infarction (heart attack). Atherosclerosis happens when nicotine gets clogged up with fatty deposits in the blood vessels that would result to a breakage of the said blood vessel and that would later be a primary cause of heart attack or even death.

           

            Cigarette smoking can seriously endanger one’s health by slowly deteriorating a person’s organ systems. It can’t only rupture one or two organ systems but many. Smoking is a slow but sure suicide. It risks life and shortens a person’s life span by how many years depending on how hard one can smoke. One way of lowering the risks is smoking cessation. But only true and honest dedication and commitment can make a person quit smoking. Smoking is hard to resist. But in this game of life, what is more important: the pleasure of what smoking can bring or the reality that smoking is a threat to one’s health?