Smoking is the number one cause of preventable death in the country and is the biggest cause of disease and death in most western countries.
It is the leading cause of many forms of cancer and also heart disease and stroke.
Virtually every organ in the body is harmed by smoking and this is due to the thousands of chemicals (yes that is thousands) that are present in tobacco smoke.
Many of those chemicals have been shown to cause cancer and many other health problems are caused or made worse due to smoking.
Illnesses that relate to breathing such as emphysema and bronchitis are caused or made worse by smoking.
Emphysema is where the cigarette smoke causes the air sacs in the lungs to become damaged and this makes it difficult for the oxygen to get transported to the bloodstream. Obviously with a reduction in the circulation of oxygen throughout the body it will deteriorate at an increased rate.
In addition to this damage to the air sacs in the lungs the airways can become inflamed from cigarette smoke causing chronic bronchitis.
When the combination of these two illnesses strike a person it can be an extremely unpleasant situation where the shortage of breath becomes increasingly difficult and ultimately results in early death.
Smoking also increases the problem of hypertension (high blood pressure) and along with that smokers are at more risk of having a heart attack than those people who don’t smoke.
The deterioration of the ability to breathe freely stops smokers from participating in sports at higher levels and ultimately this reduction in the ability to exercise results in poor health and for many people the sedentary life that they will tend to lead causes many more related health problems.
Each day of smoking is another step in the wrong direction where many parts of the body including the major organs are exposed to danger that can ultimately lead to death.