Lung Cancer and Other Effects of Smoking

Every once in awhile you hear smoker's rights groups saying that smoking is not all that dangerous. They even say that lung cancer is caused by old age and not smoking.

So what then really is hype and what is truth when it comes to this habit, and specifically, what has been shown to be the real health effects of smoking?

Basically, each new study and each new research paper tells us the same thing - smoking is bad for our health. As scientists, biologists, and doctors learn more about the human body and are able to trace smoking’s effects more clearly than they could in the past, they learn more about how damaging smoking is.

While lung cancer is still the prime concern for many when it comes to the health effects of smoking, in truth, many cancers have been traced to this habit. These include bladder cancer, throat cancer, cancer of the larynx, liver cancer, cancer of the tongue and other areas of the mouth, cancer of the large intestine, and even blood cancer or leukemia.

When I worked for a dental technician I saw firsthand how smoking can effect our bodies through cancer of the mouth. The man I worked for often made fittings for people who had had a large section of their upper palette removed because of cancer. It was amazing how big some of these fixtures were.

Besides various cancers, smoking works to dry up the arteries around the heart, causing the heart to work all that much harder to do its job. One of the clear health effects of smoking is recurrent heart attacks, heart disease, and other health problems of the vascular system.

What researchers are finding now is that many cases of heart disease and heart attacks happen in non-smokers that can be traced back to secondhand smoke or passive smoking, or of living in a very smoky atmosphere.

There are other disease of the lung, besides lung cancer, that are resultant health effects of smoking. These include bronchitis, asthma, pneumonia, chronic sore throat, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic cough with sputum, and virtually any other disease that one can contract in the respiratory system is somehow linked to smoking.

Believe it or not, infertility is also linked to smoking, for both men and women. A man’s sperm count can be affected by his smoking, as can his sperm motility. A woman’s ovulation is also affected by smoking. In either case, conception can be that much more difficult if one or both smoke.

The bottom line is that there are numerous health effects of smoking, and none of them are good. It’s not hype; it’s fact that smoking does absolutely nothing but ruin your health and the health of those around you. These are all very good reasons to quit smoking, and the sooner you quit the better.

Tags: Reasons Why to Quit Smoking, Stop Smoking Tips