December 28, 2007
Three Reasons to Stop Smoking
As we come to the close of another year, many people are making New Year's resolutions. Making a resolution to quit smoking is one of the best things you can do for your health and for those who love you.
Why stop smoking? Because smoking decreases your life span, causes all kinds of illnesses, and can even prevent you from having children.
Anyone that tells you that they can name all the harmful effects of smoking in a few simple sentences probably hasn’t kept up with all the latest research and scientific data available now. It seems that every time some government institute or science lab does some type of study on the subject, there is yet another dozen or so items to add to the list of the harmful effects of smoking.
Many people of course know about lung cancer and easily equate that with the habit of smoking. But did you also know that infertility in both men and women is considered yet another side effect of smoking?
1. Infertility
In men, smoking chokes out healthy oxygen that keeps sperm healthy and active. Having “slow” or “lazy” sperm is one common cause of a man’s infertility; the sperm are just not healthy enough to make that long trip toward a woman’s egg!
In women, smoking can interfere with her ovulation process, keeping healthy blood flow to her fallopian tubes. Not being able to release a healthy egg each month is one major cause of a woman’s infertility – and yet many women don’t know that this decreased ability to conceive a child is a common side effect of smoking!
2. Cancers
When speaking of cancer, the lungs are just one area of the body affected. Many smokers contract cancer in the mouth and throat area as well, as obviously any part of the body that comes into such close contact with cigarettes is going to be more prone to cancerous cells.
Because the tar and nicotine from cigarettes is absorbed in the bloodstream, and the body’s blood travels to every cell, there is the chance for cancerous cells to develop in virtually any area of the body.
Breast cancer, cervical cancer, cancer of the liver, and cancer of the kidneys are also thought to be additional side effects of smoking. As a matter of fact, many doctors and researchers are tying virtually any cancer into the pollution that smoking brings to the body!
3. Respiratory System
And of course the effects of smoking on the body’s respiratory system are also too many to list. The lungs absorb the toxic smoke from cigarettes but have no way of filtering out all their poisons.
Every part of the respiratory system, from the bronchial tubes to the lung sacs themselves, are affected and harmed with each and every cigarette.
So if you are thinking of trying to quit smoking, now is the time. The damage you’re doing to your body is too great to ignore, and the list of the harmful effects of smoking is just too long.
The sooner you quit smoking the sooner your body can begin to heal. It’s time to quit!
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