HEALTH EFFECTS OF TOBACCO

Nicotine, the brain poison found in tobacco, is one of the most deadly poisons known to man. Half a drop of pure nicotine is a lethal dose and for it there is no antidote. The first use of tobacco brings on these symptoms of poisoning: nausea, dizziness, and vomiting. As the body becomes accustomed to the poison, these symptoms disappear, but the poisoning of the body continues. The desired narcotic effect is felt. The user of tobacco must, like users of any other narcotic drug, continually increase the amount he uses if he is to continue to get the pleasant feeling he desires. And what is worse, he finds he is unable to live comfortably without it.

EFFECTS OF TOBACCO:

 From a pharmacological view point, nicotine is hurtful regardless of which method of intake is used, smoking (either pipe, cigar or cigarette) or chewing. Its effects are observable on the nerves, the blood-vessels and the tissues of the lips and mouth, which come into direct contact with it. Tobacco is habit-forming because of the effect that it has on the nerves. It first subdues tension and then stimulates the body. When people are under pressure they desire nothing more than something to quiet their frayed nerves. Such tranquility they seem to find in lighting up a cigarette. Only a small amount of nicotine comes with the first puff, but it is powerful enough to immediately subdue the poison. So the person goes merrily on smoking the rest of the cigarette, utterly unaware of the fact that soon after the cigarette is finished, the nicotine turns about and stimulates him, setting up a craving for another cigarette. Thus the smoker is caught in a vicious circle, and soon becomes a slave to the habit. Nor does it end there. It has been established beyond doubt that the tars that accompany the smoke have a very strong carcinogenic effect on the lining of the trachea and the lungs. This accounts for the most frightening verdict of modern medical research: smokers face a higher risk of contracting lung cancer than do non-smokers. The ratio is 10 to 1. Proved by laboratory tests and established by statistical research, this fact alone is enough to condemn the use of tobacco in any form.

Chewing tobacco also has a very similar cancerous effect

. As the wad is held between the cheek and the gums, the tar in tobacco begins to act on the tissues, and this explains the enormous increase in cases of cancer of the jaw among tobacco chewers. Experiments have shown that cancer can be started on a rabbit's ear by keeping tobacco tar on it for some time. Medical research has also revealed that tobacco has alarming effect on the blood-vessels to contract immediately. The nicotine absorbed from smoking one cigarette will cause the blood-vessels of the body to contract so that the temperature of the feet will drop 1.8C. This dismal prospect should specially be noted by those who are older and whose blood-vessels are narrowed by arteriosclerosis  for such contraction may close the artery altogether and cause a stroke, a heart attack or gangrene of the leg. It is hard to determine to what extent tobacco might affect the health of the growing foetus in a pregnant mother; but to subject an infant from its very conception to such a voilent poison as nicotine is something every woman should ponder well before taking that first puff. A nursing mother who smokes gives off enough nicotine in her milk to equal, relatively speaking, the toxic dose for a man. In other words, if a man should take in the amount of nicotine for each pound of his body weight that a nursing baby gets through its smoking mother's milk, he would get sick. But the baby does not get sick, for it has been thoroughly addicted before birth. Hence the cigarette-addicted mother is unwittingly laying the foundation for a craving to smoke in her child who may therefore take to smoking at an early age. Experts now know that breathing in someone else's secondhand smoke is hazardous to our health. Secondhand smoking, is twice as bad as lighting up a cigarette. I know that it is difficult to break off using tobacco but not impossible. One should try as much as he can to break off the habit.

loading..

Posted in: Health effects