What Does Smoking Do to Your Body?

It is a well known fact now that smoking is very harmful. It affects the body and mental functioning. It gives out a large number of chemicals through smoke as well as the tobacco contained in it. There are more than 4000 chemicals released, many of which are toxic and/or carcinogenic. Smoking is known to affect most organs and functions of the body, including heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, breathing, and blood pressure.

What does smoking do to your body?
Smoking affects and harms a very large number of body organs and functions. There is almost no organ or body function that remains completely unaffected by it. This is because when smoke is inhaled, it gos into the lungs from where it is absorbed by the blood which circulates it all over the body.

Lungs and the respiratory system: This is the system that gets affected the most as it comes in direct contact with smoke and tobacco. It bears the brunt of the heat of burning cigarette, nicotine from tobacco and the large number of chemicals in cigarette smoke. Other than this, there are some other problems that affect this system.

Heart and circulatory system: This is another system that is badly affected by smoke and tobacco. Smoke and nicotine affects the blood vessels, that is, the arteries and veins that carry blood from and to the heart. These are some ailments that affect this system .

Brain and nervous system: They get affected mainly due to decreased oxygen supply to the brain which interferes with its normal functioning. Also, it affects delicate nerve endings due to improper blood supply, leading to sense problems. It can cause attention problems as well as problems with memory and retention.

Immune system: This system gets affected as the toxins that enter the body through smoking affect the normal functioning of WBCs or white blood cells that are the main disease fighting cells of the body. This makes the body vulnerable to attack from external factors like virus, bacteria and other disease causing factors.

Reproductive system: This system gets affected very adversely by smoking. It can lead to erectile dysfunction in men and impotency and sterility in both men and women. It can also cause many problems like early menopause in women and low birth weight of infants in pregnant women who smoke.

These are just some of the major problems that smoking can cause. There are many other small and big effects that smoking and tobacco have on the body. That is why it is best to stay away from cigarette smoking and tobacco.

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