EFFECTS OF TOBACCO

Tobacco is a plant grown in the southern United States. Tobacco leaves are dried and made into cigarettes and cigars. Tobacco can be smoked or chewed.

Although cigarettes are legal, they are very, very dangerous. Each year more people die from smoking cigarettes than from all other drugs combined. More than 400,000 people die each year from heart disease, lung disease, cancer and strokes because they smoked cigarettes.

Cigarettes are "sneaky" because it takes longer for them to kill you than some other drugs do. Tobacco contains many poisonous and toxic substances. Nicotine, which is the active drug in tobacco, is a stimulant drug. This means nicotine speeds up the brain and body. In high doses, nicotine is a poison. Nicotine can block the muscles to the lungs and the lungs stop breathing. Many young children have died from nicotine poisoning after eating cigarettes.

There are over 3,500 poisonous gases, like carbon monoxide, in cigarette smoke. Carbon monoxide is a poison because it prevents the blood from carrying oxygen. When there is no oxygen, the body dies.

The body does not like smoke. What happens when you are around smoke? You cough. Coughing is the way the body rejects substances it does not like. Coughing is one of the ways the body says it doesn't like cigarette smoke.

Effects on the Lungs

Since smoke is inhaled by the lungs, much of the damage occurs in the lungs. Cigarette smoke is filled with tar and cancer--causing substances known as carcinogens. Tar "sticks" to the walls of the lungs and blood vessels, causing damage.

Inside the lungs are something known as cilia. Cilia are tiny hairs and these hairs move to push bad things out of the lungs. Things like dirt, dust, toxins, viruses and bacteria are removed from the lungs by the cilia. Tar from cigarettes stops the cilia from working. When bacteria or virus germs enter the lungs, thousands of white blood cells attack the germs and create phlegm. The body coughs up the phlegm to rid itself of the germs. 


Think about the last time you had a cold and had phlegm in your lungs. The cells moved their cilia, and this action moved the phlegm upwards so when you coughed your body could get rid of the virus causing your cold. 


Tar sticks to the cilia so the hairs can’t move. As tar builds up on the cilia, the body can’t get rid of toxins, bacteria, viruses and dust as well as it should. This results in more colds and infections for the person who smokes.

Tobacco Causes Cancer. Smoking is the number one cause of cancer. Cancer is a disease of "bad cells." Cancer cells do not work like normal cells. When the bad cancer cells begin to grow and multiply, they take over the good cells and destroy the body's ability to repair itself. A clump or group of cancer cells is called a malignant tumor. When cancer cells take over a certain body part, like the lungs, the cancer is named after that part (for example, lung cancer).

Cancer can be caused by toxins or poisons. Good, healthy cells can be changed by toxins into bad cancer cells. As tar and toxins build up in the lungs they destroy good lung cells. Usually the body can get rid of toxins and wastes; however, sometimes the body gives up.

The toxins damage and change the good cells into bad cancer cells. The cancer takes over the body and breaks down the body's immune system. The immune system fights diseases. Since cancer cells cannot fight disease, the body can die from infection.

Cigarette smoking causes many types of cancers because the toxins and tar are carried in the bloodstream to other parts of the body. Tobacco causes mouth, throat, lung and many other types of cancer. Lung cancer is the number one type of cancer found in cigarette smokers, and kills more men and women than any other type of cancer.

Emphysema is a disease of destroyed lung cells. Unlike cancer, where bad cells grow, with emphysema, good cells are killed. Healthy lung cells are destroyed by tar and toxins found in smoke. As cells die, it becomes more difficult to breathe.

People who have emphysema can do very little work because they cannot get enough oxygen into their lungs. They have to use oxygen tanks to live. They get more diseases and infections than people who don't smoke. People who have emphysema die when they cannot get enough oxygen into their bodies to live.

 

Tar from cigarette smoke kills healthy cells and causes a disease called emphysema. 


(More information on the pharmacological effects of tobacco can be found in the student workbook).

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