Let’s face it – we all know smoking is bad for us. Most of us know that it can cause lung cancer, smoker’s cough and all-around bad breath. But there are some other not-so-pretty side effects that you might not have known.
The fact is, smoking isn’t just a habit that will give you trouble later on in life, it will give you trouble all along the way.
Bad Skin And Wrinkles
Because smoking restricts blood vessels, it can prevent oxygen and nutrients like Vitamin A from getting to the skin. Smoking also affects the body’s production of collagen and elastin, fibres that give your skin its strength and elasticity. As a result, skin begins to sag and wrinkle prematurely. Lines tend to develop around the mouth from sucking on cigarettes and around the eyes from squinting through smoke.
Increased Risk Of Injury
Your skin is not the only tissue that is composed of collagen. This fibre is also present in your tendons and ligaments. Therefore if your body’s ability to produce collagen is hampered, injuries involving damage to tendons and ligaments will heal more slowly. These types of injuries are common, especially for those people involved in sports.
Slow Healing Time
Smokers' broken bones often take a lot longer to heal and the reason for this is simple. Nicotine, a main ingredient in cigarettes, constricts blood vessels to around 25 per cent of their normal diameter. Since the new formation of bone depends on an adequate supply of blood, oxygen and nutrients reaching the injured area, bones tend to heal more slowly in smokers because lower levels of nutrients are supplied to the bones.
Increased Risk Of Illness
Studies show that smokers get more colds, flu, bronchitis and pneumonia than non-smokers. In addition, people with certain health conditions, like asthma, become sicker if they smoke (and often if they're just around people who smoke). As well, teens that smoke as a way to manage weight often light up instead of eating. As a result, their bodies lack the nutrients they need to grow, develop and fight off illness properly.
The mixture of nicotine and carbon monoxide in each cigarette temporarily increases your heart rate and blood pressure, straining your heart and blood vessels. This can cause heart attacks and stroke. Not surprisingly, heart disease and strokes are more common among smokers than non-smokers.
Age-Related Blindness
British studies have recently shown that smoking increases the chances of going blind, as you get older. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) results in severe and irreversible loss of central vision, especially in people over the age of 60. Experts warn that smokers are twice as likely as non-smokers to lose their sight in later life. Some of these experts further argue that the link between AMD and smoking is now as strong as the link between smoking and lung cancer.
Smoking Could Burn Down Your House
You may be chuckling and that's okay. But read this anyways. Smoking is actually the cause of many house fires, some of which cost human lives. According to a worldwide study published by the University of California Davis in 1998, smoking is a leading cause of house fires and fire-related deaths. In particular, smoking in bed is a major cause of accidental fire deaths because people fall asleep with burning cigarettes on their beds.
Impotence
Guys, take note: smoking increases the risk of erectile dysfunction by around 50 per cent for men in their 30s and 40s. Most of us know that eating fatty foods can increase cholesterol and fatty deposits inside our arteries, but fewer people are aware that smoking also increases these fatty deposits. A long-term build up of fatty deposits in the arteries that carry blood to the penis can decrease the flow of blood into that area.
Dulls Your Taste Buds
Chemicals and tar from cigarettes coat the inside of a smoker's mouth, including their taste buds, which leads some smokers to over-season their food. The chemicals and tar in cigarettes also hamper the functioning of the cells of the taste buds and "nose buds". Since our sense of taste depends largely on whether or not we can smell what we’re eating, dulled olfactory cells will lead to dulled taste.
Quitters do prosper
If all this stressful information is giving you a craving for a cigarette, hold on one more second. The fact is you shouldn't need to wait for each new study to make a decision on smoking. If you want to quit, now is the time. For more information, visit the Canadian Cancer Society at www.cancer.ca, or the American Cancer Society at www.cancer.org.
Renew Life Webmasters Note: If you are ready to quit, we are ready to help. Renew Life has developed Smokers Cleanse to address the 3 main ‘triggers’ that cause people to fail in their attempt to quit smoking.
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Click on the products link above to learn more about Smokers Cleanse and how it can help you.
Smokers Cleanse is the ultimate aid to help you quit smoking!
