World No Tobacco Day 2019: Tobacco and Lung Health

Fatal diseases such as emphysema, pneumonia, and lung cancer are resultants of smoking. Estimated 84% of deaths from lung cancer are caused due to smoking. Other 83% of deaths are caused by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Every cigarette you smoke reduces 11 minutes off your life! Hence, with every smoke, you take yourself and the other people around closer to death. Do you know smoking plays a significant role in developing the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)? Raging tobacco builds more than four thousand chemicals, which include nicotine, carbon monoxide, and tars. These chemicals advance healthy cells into cancer cells. Everyone knows smoking is injurious to health but do you know in how many ways it can damage your body? Lungs and airways experience crucial changes due to smoking.  Some changes are instant and temporary like cold and pneumonia. While on the other hand, some permanent changes take time to occur but are deadly like emphysema. 

Also read: Are e-cigarettes safer than tobacco? 4 myths about e-cigarettes busted

Here are the effects of tobacco on lung health: 

• Lung problems: Tobacco is an enemy of your lungs as it destroys your lung tissues. Smoking aggravates and burns the lungs. Indeed, even a couple of cigarettes lead to coughing. Sufficient oxygen is not passed to critical parts of your body as smoking decreases the number of air space and blood vessels in the lungs.
• Insufficient cilia: Cilia are broom-like hair, which cleanses the lungs. As you light a cigarette, the movement in cilia slows down. One cigarette is enough to slow down the action of your cilia for several hours. After every smoke, the number of cilia in your lungs reduces rapidly.

Quit Smoking

Immediately after you stop smoking, the body reacts differently. The smoker may be subjected to body tremours, palpations, etc. However, as soon as one stops smoking, the body starts repairing itself. Following are a few of the benefits of the smoking cessation timeline: 

Quick abatement in breathing related side effects, regardless of how much or to what extent you smoked

• Simpler breathing within 72 hours
• A stamped decline in cough, mucus, shortness of breath, and wheezing inside one month
• Less disturbed and aroused aviation routes
• Cilia development in one to nine months
• Lungs progressively ready to deal with bodily fluid, self-clean, and battle contamination
• Symptoms of asthma declines
• Mild and fewer colds and lung infections
• In five years risk of pneumonia decreases by 50 per cent
• Less and mid bouts of the flu
• Response to flu vaccine increases rapidly
• The decline in bronchitis symptoms
• By the time symptoms of chronic bronchitis might disappear
• Increased chances to live longer
• Pre-cancer tissue may get back to normal
• In five years risk of lung cancer also reduces
• Small improvements from emphysema symptoms 

On this World No Tobacco Day 2019, it should be everyone’s endeavour to support those who are willing to quit smoking, promoting good health and longer life. 

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