Health
Cigarette smoking is the number one cause of preventable disease and death worldwide. Smoking-related diseases claim more than 480,000 American lives each year. Smoking cost the U.S. at least $289 billion each year, including at least $150 billion in lost productivity and $130 billion in direct healthcare expenditures. This is an average of close to $7,000 per adult smoker.
One of the many areas nicotine affects is the brain. The Nicotine from cigarettes is as addictive as heroin. Nicotine addiction is hard to beat because it changes your brain. The brain develops extra nicotine receptors to accommodate the large doses of nicotine from tobacco. When the brain stops getting the nicotine it’s used to, the result is nicotine withdrawal. You may feel anxious, irritable, and have …show more content…
Smoking causes inflammation in the small airways and tissues of your lungs. This can make your chest feel tight or cause you to wheeze or feel short of breath. Continued inflammation builds up scar tissue, which leads to physical changes to your lungs and airways that can make breathing hard. Years of lung irritation can give you a chronic cough with mucus.
There's no way around it. Smoking is bad for your health. Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body. Cigarette smoking causes 87 percent of lung cancer deaths. It is also responsible for many other cancers and health problems. These include lung disease, heart and blood vessel disease, stroke and cataracts. Women who smoke have a greater chance of certain pregnancy problems or having a baby die from sudden infant death syndrome .Your smoke is also bad for other people - they breathe in your smoke secondhand and can get many of the same problems as smokers