List the health hazards associated with tobacco use and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke as well as discuss quitting strategies
I know from some answers a few of you have provided this semester that some of you smoke or vape. And I can talk until I am blue in the face about the health hazards of using tobacco products. But I'd rather show you.
Both of these products use nicotine. Nicotine itself won't cause cancer, but it is used to get a person hooked on a product. And those products are what causes cancer. However, nicotine
First, the general concerns...
Now lets get down to some nitty gritty... What a smoker's lungs might look like:
In the picture above, notice the larger heart. Because nicotine (found in vaping products as well) causes high blood pressure, the walls of the heart have to grow to force more blood out. This is not a healthy way for your heart to grow.
And that is not even the most disgusting one I could find... but this one might qualify
Notice all the white/yellow/creamy-looking stuff on the smoker's lungs, that is cancer and it has replaced the healthy tissue. You could imagine that any person with either of these diseased lungs would have to use an oxygen tank to breath towards the end of his/her life.
Did you ever read about what tobacco companies put in cigarettes and what some of them do to a person's body...
And it is not just for people who do smoke. All of these issues also exist for those who live/work in a place with a smoker. Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) can be just as dangerous for a secondary (second-hand) smoker as it is for a primary smoker. Notice all of the chemicals that are in cigarettes.
Now notice what is called "Side-stream" smoke vs. "Main-stream" smoke. Main stream is what is inhaled by a smoker. Side-stream is what is inhaled by a smoker and a non-smoker.
Side-stream smoke contains more of the chemicals that can cause health problems than mainstream smoke. And nearly 85% of the smoke in a room/car is side-stream smoke. Besides having respiratory problems, the inhalation of side-stream smoke causes nearly 3,000 deaths per year by Lung Cancer and over 50,000 deaths per year by Heart Disease in NON-SMOKERS. Not to mention multiple respiratory problems for non-smokers
But what about chew (spit or smokeless) tobacco...
It doesn't have all of the health problems regular cigarettes do, right?...
Well, did you know that chew tobacco has nicotine in it? That is how people get the "buzz" from chew tobacco. But you can't digest nicotine in the stomach. It can be inhaled.
So how does chew tobacco get nicotine in your body when you don't inhale the chew... simple. Tobacco companies put little fibers in the chew, these fibers cause an abrasion in your skin, opening up a blood vessel and letting the nicotine in. And it also lets in carcinogens (cancer causing agents).
This leads to people getting cancer of the lip, tongue, gums, jaws, throat, etc or they just have their teeth rot away (tooth decay). And they end up like this...
or like this...
And these were some of the nicer pictures I could find.
E-Cigarettes OR Vaping
So what about e-cigarettes? Or other types of Vaping products? There are lots of news reports on the web about how safe they are... right? Ummm no.
For additional information, please read this article from John's Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore, MD):
And e-cigs can be really bad if you turn up the voltage on them:
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/cancer/you-vape-high-levels-formaldehyde-hidden-e-cigs-n290826
Ok.. ok... I'll step back down off of my soap box.
QUITTING
So what if you want to quit any kind of smoking/nicotine based products? Read through this info-graph to get an idea of what will happen to you body when you do decide to stop using them:
If you are looking to quit any type of Nicotine carrying products, there are a ton of resources for you to use. On average, it takes those who use these products about 4 different times trying to quit before they are successful. So if something didn't work, try again or try another method!
Steps to quit Vaping: https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-quit-vaping
Steps to quit Smoking: https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/quit-smoking/index.html
How to handle nicotine withdraw: https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/quitting-smoking-vaping/quitting-vaping-here-are-5-tips-handling-nicotine
