Using tobacco products can increase your risk of developing heart disease and other serious illnesses. The American Cancer Society reports that tobacco use is responsible for nearly one in five deaths in the Unites States, as of 2010. All forms of tobacco, not just cigarettes, can be dangerous to your own health and even the health of your family members.
Identification
Cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco contain dried and shredded leaves from the tobacco plant. Nicotine, a natural substance found in tobacco, causes an addiction to smoking or chewing tobacco after repeated use. Tobacco smoke produces 4,000 different gases and particles and more than 40 carcinogens, according to the American Council for Drug Education. A carcinogen is a substance that can cause cancer.
Effects
People smoke because nicotine makes them feel good. The feeling subsides quickly, prompting smokers to crave another cigarette to regain that pleasurable feeling. Although you may like the way nicotine makes you feel, it raises your heart rate and blood pressure and causes your heart to pump more blood. Carbon monoxide, a harmful chemical found in smoke, makes it more difficult for oxygen-carrying red blood cells to circulate throughout your body. Without sufficient oxygen, your heart works harder to compensate and you can eventually develop heart failure or thickening of the heart. Smoking also damages the lungs and causes respiratory illnesses, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, pneumonia, emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Years of smoking can even begin to destroy the tissue in your lungs.
Considerations
Although users of smokeless tobacco may not experience the lung problems that smokers do, they can develop their own set of problems. Regular use of chewing tobacco or snuff can increase the risk of developing heart disease and gum disease, and cause pre-cancerous sores to form in the mouth.
Cancer
Cigarette smoking is linked to an increase in cancer of the lungs, oral cavity, throat, voice box, esophagus, stomach, kidney, cervix, pancreas and bladder, according to the American Cancer Society. Smoking also increases your risk of developing acute myeloid leukemia. Using smokeless tobacco can increase your risk of developing oral cancer.
Secondhand Smoke
Breathing in cigarette, cigar or pipe smoke, even if you don't smoke, can be harmful to your health. Exposure to cigarette smoke can increase the risk of heart disease and cancer in non-smokers, trigger asthma attacks in adults and children, and increase or worsen respiratory illnesses in children. Secondhand smoking also affects the fetuses of pregnant women. Because smoking reduces oxygen circulation in a pregnant woman's body, the baby does not receive optimal oxygen and nourishment and can suffer from low birthweight, birth defects or premature birth.
