How does tobacco smoking affect you, your well-being and your health?  It has a serious effect and it can potentially harm every organ of your body. It can compromise the function of the immune system, the body’s protection from infection and disease has been reduced, hence smokers are more likely to have infections. It has been in the studies that smoking has an effect on our bones, it weakens our bone condition that makes it susceptible to fractures.

A significant bone loss has been discovered to those individuals who smoke, it appears that the risk for low bone mass and fractures is reduced if the individual quits smoking. Breathing tobacco smoke can alter the blood chemistry and damage the blood vessels, thus this can damage the function of the heart. As the smoke is inhaled, the heart rate and blood pressure increases, meanwhile the blood vessels thicken and narrow. The damage of the chemicals in tobacco increases the individual’s risk for atherosclerosis, aneurysm, cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, peripheral arterial disease, and stroke. Every cigarette an individual smokes damage the breathing and contribute to scarring of the lungs.

Tobacco smoking causes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a disease that gets worse over time, emphysema, a condition in which the walls between the air sacs lose their ability to stretch and shrink back, chronic bronchitis, a condition that causes swelling of the lining of the bronchial tubes, pneumonia, asthma, and tuberculosis. You might not be expecting this but, smoking can affect an individual’s vision. Age-related macular degeneration, cataract, optic nerve damage, and even blindness are linked to smoking. As tobacco contains more than 7,000 chemicals, 70 of them are known to cause cancer. Yes, cancer. Tobacco smoking is the number one risk factor for lung cancer. However, it does not only affect the lungs, it can affect the entire body it has been known to cause cancer in the trachea, bronchus, esophagus, oral cavity, lips, nasopharynx, nasal cavity, larynx, stomach, bladder, pancreas, kidney, liver, uterine cervix, colon, and rectum.

Secondhand smoke is a combination of the smoke from the burning end of the cigarette and the smoke exhaled by the smokers. Homes, cars, workplaces, public places, and recreational facilities can be a source of secondhand smokes, thus there is no safe exposure to it. When a non-smoker is a person who is smoking, the inhalation of smoke can give the non-smoker the same danger as to the smoker.

Exposure to secondhand smoke can also cause the non-smoker the same negative effects to the smoker. An investigation has shown that the smoking ban laws have helped improve the public health since the law has restricted smoking in workplaces, restaurants, and bars. Secondhand smoke hurts and individual, and it does not take much and it does not take long. Pregnant women, babies, and children should be protected from secondhand smoke, for it can lead to low birth weight, serious health problems or worse, sudden infant death syndrome. Pregnant women are then advised to stay away from environments where secondhand smoke lingers.