The health risks of smoking

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Most people know that cigarette smoke contains nicotine, which is a powerful and addictive drug but many don't know that cigarette smoke also contains more than 4,000 toxic chemicals, at least 40 of which are proven cancer causing substances or carcinogens.

Smoking is the single greatest cause of preventable illness and death in the UK. More than six million people have died from smoking related diseases in the UK alone during the last 50 years. Smoking eventually kills half of all regular smokers and is the cause of 120,000 preventable deaths in the UK each year.

• 320 British people die everyday as a result of smoking - the equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing!
  
• A smoker dies every 5 minutes from smoking related diseases in the UK.
  
• Each cigarette reduces life expectancy by 11 minutes.
  
• A 20 a day smoker is losing one day of life for every week of smoking.

Smoking and cancer
Smoking is the cause of one third of all cancer deaths in the UK.

Lung cancer is the cancer most commonly associated with smoking, smoking causes nine out of ten lung cancer cases. One person dies every 15 minutes from lung cancer in the UK - 33,000 a year

Smoking is also a risk factor for many other cancers including:

• Mouth and throat
  
• Bladder and kidney
  
• Oesophagus (food pipe)
  
• Stomach
  
• Cervix
  
• Leukaemia

Smoking and heart disease
Smokers are more than twice as likely to have a fatal heart attack as non-smokers. Smoking is responsible for 26,000 deaths from heart disease in the UK each year.
Smoking leads to an artery clogging process, which causes of heart attacks, strokes and peripheral vascular disease.
At least 80% of heart attacks in men under 45 are thought to be due to cigarette smoking. At this age, heavy smokers (20 a day or more) have 10 to 15 times the rate of fatal heart attacks of non-smokers.

Smoking damages the heart in a number of ways:

• By lowering HDL cholesterol ("good" cholesterol).
• By reducing blood flow because of the build up of fatty deposits which narrows blood vessels
• Carbon monoxide a poisonous gas, found in tobacco smoke, makes the blood less able to carry oxygen to the heart and all the bodies organs and tissues
• Nicotine is a stimulant that raises the heart rate, which increases blood pressure and causes the heart to work much harder.

Smoking and respiratory disease
Respiratory diseases including bronchitis and emphysema kill nearly 30,000 people in the UK each year with more than 8 out of 10 cases being attributed to smoking.

The inhalation of toxic substances over a period of time reduces lung capacity, which can lead to the development of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease where sufferers becoming out of breath at the slightest of exertion.

Smoking causes asthma in people who would otherwise be healthy

Smoking and sexual health

• Smoking damages human reproductive and sexual health. Smoking reduces the fertility of both men and women and leads delayed conception.
  
• Smoking reduces a woman's chances of becoming pregnant by around 40 per cent.
  
• Smoking is the cause of 1,200 cases of cervical cancer in the UK each year.
  
• 120,000 young British men are impotent because they smoke

Smoking and pregnancy
Smoking during pregnancy can significantly damage the health of the unborn child:

• Women smokers have a 25% increased risk of miscarriage compared to non-smokers.
  
• Smoking and passive smoking are linked to about 3000 - 5000 miscarriages in the country every year.
  
• Babies born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy are more likely to have low birth weight, often the cause of health and developmental problems in childhood.
  
• Studies show that an unborn foetus suffers ill effects from secondhand smoking. Despite this only 6% of male smokers give up when their partner is pregnant.

Smoking and mental health
Smokers experience withdrawal symptoms in between cigarettes as the nicotine levels in their blood start to fall causing symptoms of stress and anxiety. When smokers report that a cigarette helps them cope with stress it is in fact relieving these nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Non-smokers do not experience this 'withdrawal' stress.