Smoking may be portrayed as "cool" and many people may be doing it, but neither of these reasons negates the years of research linking tobacco smoking to many forms of cancer and other diseases. Lung cancer caused by tobacco smoke is 100 percent preventable. In the United States as of 2008, 23.1 percent of American men and 18.3 percent of American women smoke, according to the American Heart Association. Many states are banning smoking in restaurants and bars as smoking is becoming increasingly socially unacceptable as the health effects of smoking are now well known.
Carcinogenic Compounds
Cigarettes aren't just tobacco leaves rolled into a paper--there are nearly 600 additives used in the manufacture of cigarettes. In 1994, cigarette manufacturers for the first time sent the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services lists of the 599 additives that they put into cigarettes, which are approved by the FDA as food additives. When burned in a cigarette however, the properties of these additives change--often for the worse--which the FDA doesn't take into account when approving them. The list of additives includes chemicals such as acetone, mercury, lead, propylene glycol, cadmium and hydrogen cyanide. Forty-three of these chemicals are known carcinogens, including formaldehyde, arsenic and benzene. A carcinogenic substance is any substance that causes cancer.
Cancer
Smoking tobacco causes several different types of cancer including lung, larynx, throat, lip and even kidney cancer according to the Centers for Disease Control. Smoking increases men's chances of getting cancer 23 times more than nonsmokers and women's chances 13 times more than nonsmokers. The CDC also notes that cancer is higher in African-American men compared to all other ethnic groups. According to the National Cancer Institute, 90 percent of all lung cancers can be attributed to smoking.
Cardiovascular Exposure
Smoking causes constriction of the blood vessels, and because of this smokers are more likely to develop peripheral vascular disease compared to nonsmokers, according to the CDC. Secondhand smoke has also been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease as well as lung cancer in non-smoking adults. Secondhand smoke has immediate effects on the cardiovascular system and people already at risk for heart disease are especially prone to smoking's ill cardiovascular effects.
