Smoking

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Introduction

What's in a cigarette

• Nicotine
• Tar
• Carbon monoxide
• Naphthalene
• Arsenic
• Cadmium
• Phenol
• DDT
• Ammonia

What smoking does to your body

Diseases caused by smoking

• Respiratory
• Heart Disease
• Cancers
• Other Disorders

Passive Smoking

• In young people
• In adults
• In Pregnant women

Why do people smoke?

Giving Up

• Costs
• Health reasons
  Giving up for:
  • 20 mins
  • 8 hours
  • 24 hours
  • 48 hours
  • 72 hours
  • 2 – 12 weeks
  • 3 – 9 months
  • 5 years
  • 10 years
• The environment

Introduction

Welcome to 11up smoking section. We have information on what’s in a cigarette, what smoking does to your body, illnesses and diseases caused by smoking, passive smoking, why people smoke and giving up.

What’s in a cigarette?

Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 different chemicals including noxious gases and tiny droplets of tar and nicotine.
When you take a puff on a fag you are inhaling smoke that contains chemicals found in insecticide, explosives and floor cleaner!

So what chemicals are in a cigarette?

Nicotine

The drug that makes a cigarette addictive

Tar

Which is know to cause cancer over a long period of time and get deposited in the lungs

Carbon monoxide

15% of a smoker's blood may be carrying around this gas instead of oxygen. Also found in vehicles exhaust fumes.

Naphthalene

Smelly stuff found in mothballs and explosives

Arsenic

Found in ant poison

Cadmium

Found in car batteries

Phenol

Found in toilet cleaner

DDT

An insecticide

Ammonia

Pungent gas found in fertiliser and floor cleaner

What smoking does to your body?

Smoking:

• Makes your hair and clothes smell
• Stains your teeth
• Gives you bad breath
• Makes your skin dry
• Causes wrinkles earlier in life
• Can affect your sports performance - you won't be able to run as fast or as far.

And these are just short-term effects. Smoking causes a lot of serious and often fatal diseases, such as:

• Coronary heart disease
• Emphysema
• Mouth cancer
• Throat cancer
• Lung cancer
• Bladder cancer.

Lung cancer is the most common cancer in the UK. It is estimated that nine out of 10 cases are caused by tobacco smoking. Here are some examples of diseases caused by smoking: -

Diseases caused by smoking

Respiratory

• Chronic bronchitis, emphysema and other lung diseases.
• Recurrent infections in the airways
• Damage and loss of efficiency in the lungs

Heart Disease

• Coronary heart disease - Clogged up arteries, which can also lead to strokes
• Atherosclerosis - fatty deposits in the arteries that can lead to strokes
• Peripheral vascular disease (lack of oxygen in the blood leading to gangrene)
• Buerger's disease - this leads to fingers and toes turning black and requires amputation of the affected body part.

Cancers

• Lungs
• Mouth, nose and throat
• Larynx
• Oesophagus
• Pancreas
• Bladder
• Stomach
• Leukaemia
• Kidney

Other Disorders

• Peptic Ulcers (ulcers in the stomach and duodenum)
• Increase both in incidence and the time they take to heal
• Tobacco amblyopia (defective vision)
• Reduction in fertility in both men and women

Passive Smoking

Even if you don't smoke yourself, breathing other people's smoke, or passive smoking, is bad for you.

Other people's cigarette smoke is made up of:

• Sidestream smoke (smoke burning from the end of the cigarette)
• Mainstream smoke (smoke breathed out by the smoker).

In young people

In young people, passive smoking can cause:

• Chronic coughing
• Wheezing
• The build up of mucus or phlegm
• Increased respiratory illness and infections
• The lungs not to grow or work properly.

In adults

In adults passive smoking can:

• Irritate your eyes, nose and throat
• Cause headaches, dizziness and sickness
• Increase the chances of heart disease and lung cancer.

In pregnant women

In pregnant women who smoke carbon monoxide and nicotine passes into their lungs and bloodstream, reducing the oxygen supply to the baby. This means that their babies are:

• More likely to suffer from asthma attacks, chest infections and colds
• More likely be born prematurely
• More likely to be born underweight
• More likely to die suddenly (cot death).

Why do people smoke

People give lots of different reasons for smoking:

It looks cool and attractive - You might look cool and attractive, but what's the point of smelling like an ashtray? If you're that bothered about your appearance, it is worth knowing that smoking causes wrinkles.

It keeps my weight down - OK, so it might dull your appetite, but smoking won't make you lose weight. You won't automatically put on weight if you give up smoking either. People may turn to food when they're trying to give up smoking.

However choosing healthy snacks and finding something active to do instead of smoking can help a lot.

I enjoy smoking - But do people around you enjoy smoking? Passive smoking - breathing other people's smoke - for a long period of time can lead to lung cancer in non-smokers.

I'm not a proper smoker I can give up at anytime - If you think you can give up why don't you? Quitline offers free support and advice to those who wish to stop smoking.

Giving Up

Giving up smoking can be hard, especially if all your mates smoke. But there are good reasons to quit. Here are 3 reasons, Costs, your health and the environment.

Costs:

Smoking is an expensive habit. When you smoke your money literally goes up in smoke. Work out just how much money a smoking habit burns, for example if I smoked 10 a day for 5 years it would cost me over £4,100.

Think about how many pairs of trainers, books, games, clothes, DVD’s or videos could you buy with that money?

Health reasons

Even if you are young smoking can affect your health. You are more likely to be at risk of coughs and respiratory infections. In the long term you risk having a heart attack or getting lung cancer. As soon as you quit smoking your body starts repairing the damage that's been done. You might think it's hard to give up smoking, but 1,000 people in Britain stop smoking - and do not start again - every day.

Find out what happens to your body when you quit smoking:

	Time	This is what happens to you after you stop smoking...
	20 mins	Blood pressure and pulse rate return to normal.
	8 hrs	Nicotine and carbon monoxide levels in the blood reduce by half, oxygen levels return to normal.
	24 hrs	Carbon monoxide is eliminated from the body. Lungs start to clear out mucus and other smoking debris.
	48 hrs	No nicotine left in the body. Ability to taste and smell is greatly improved.
	72 hrs	Breathing becomes easier. Bronchial tubes begin to relax and energy levels increase.
	2-12 wks	Circulation improves.
	3-9 mths	Coughs, wheezing and breathing problems improve as lung function is increased by up to 10 per cent.
	5 yrs	Risk of heart attack falls to about half that of a smoker.
	10 yrs	Risk of lung cancer falls to half that of a smoker.

The Environment

If you don't care about your body, think about the environment. Each year millions of trees are cut down to grow tobacco and to make cigarettes. Wood is also burned to create heat to dry tobacco leaves before they are sent to the factory for processing. In a survey by the Tidy Britain Group, cigarette ends were found to make up about 40% of items of street litter in the UK. Every day smokers dispose of 200 million cigarette butts, many of them thrown on the ground.