Parts Of the Body Cigarettes Kill The Most

Sometimes cigarette smokers are under the impression that it takes many years for the habit to do any real damage to their bodies, but that simply is not true. Cigarette smoking begins to have detrimental affects on your body as soon as you start doing it regularly. Granted, it might take a lot of years for you to get a serious smoking related disease, but that does not mean that damage is not being done long before that. If you are wondering specifically which parts of the body smoking can affect, that is simple to answer, almost everything.

The damage from smoking cigarettes begins with the mouth, throat, larynx since that is where the smoke goes first. It can cause throat irritation and irritation to the gum. After you have smoked for a while, you might notice that your voice sounds raspier, this is because it is affecting your larynx. Next the smoke goes into the lungs. It can cause excess mucus and narrowing and swelling of the airways. It can cause the lungs to be less able to clear themselves of poisonous substances. You will cough more and after a while wheeze as well. It causes permanent lung damage.

Smokers realize that smoking causes problems with their breathing because this is one of the smoking side effects that they notice the soonest. It does not mean that are things are not being affected as well that they can not feel. The blood can be stickier and carry less oxygen. The blood pressure and the heart rate will many times begin to be affected. This raises the risks for blockages which can lead to strokes and heart attacks. The linings of the arteries can be damaged causing atherosclerosis which is a build up of fatty deposits on the artery walls. This causes poor blood flow.

These are the damages that most smokers might also know can happen to them. The things they might not know anything at all about is are the facts that it can reduce male sperm count and normalcy, reduce female fertility, cause skin wrinkles, early menopause in women, reduce male sex hormones, cause male impotence, contribute to cervix cancer in women, and osteoporosis. The list goes on and on and on. Smoking can affect the unborn baby in pregnant women, it can make it harder to get over colds or the flu. There is no end to the types of cancer you can have develop because of cigarette smoking.

The sad thing is that there is no certain time gage when you will develop disease from smoking. For some people it might be thirty years, for others it could be twenty or even ten. The longer you smoke, the more at risk you become. The good news is the sooner you quit, the better chance there is that your body will heal itself. If you wait until disease has already set in before you quit, you might have already waited to late to reverse any damage.