IGN Intelligent Gene Networks Technology

Overview

Smoking is a practice in which a substance is burned and the resulting smoke is typically breathed in to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream. Most commonly, the substance used is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant, which have been rolled into a small rectangle of rolling paper to create a small, round cylinder called a cigarette. Smoking is primarily practised as a route of administration for recreational drug use because the combustion of the dried plant leaves vaporizes and delivers active substances into the lungs where they are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream and reach bodily tissue.

Cigarette smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causes many diseases, and reduces the health of smokers in general. Smokers are more likely than nonsmokers to develop heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer. Smoking can cause lung disease by damaging your airways and the small air sacs (alveoli) found in your lungs.

Smoking and Cardiovascular Disease

Smokers are at greater risk for diseases that affect the heart and blood vessels (cardiovascular disease):
1) Smoking causes stroke and coronary heart disease, which are among the leading causes of death.
2) Even people who smoke fewer than five cigarettes a day can have early signs of cardiovascular disease.
3) Smoking damages blood vessels and can make them thicken and grow narrower. This makes your heart beat faster and your blood pressure go up. Clots can also form.
4) A stroke occurs when a clot blocks the blood flow to part of your brain and a blood vessel in or around your brain bursts.

Smoking and Respiratory Disease

Smoking can cause lung disease by damaging your airways and the small air sacs (alveoli) found in your lungs.
1) Lung diseases caused by smoking include COPD, which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
2) Cigarette smoking causes most cases of lung cancer.
3) If you have asthma, tobacco smoke can trigger an attack or make an attack worse.
4) Smokers are 13 times more likely to die from COPD than nonsmokers.

Smoking and Cancer

Smoking can cause cancer almost anywhere in your body: Mouth and throat (oral cavity and pharynx); Esophagus, voice box (larynx); Lung, bronchus, and trachea; Acute myeloid leukemia; Liver; Kidney and renal pelvis; Stomach; Uterine cervix; Pancreas; Urinary bladder; Colon and rectum. Smoking can cause cancer almost anywhere in your body: Bladder, Blood (acute myeloid leukemia), Cervix, Colon and rectum (colorectal), Esophagus, Kidney and ureter, Larynx, Liver Oropharynx (includes parts of the throat, tongue, soft palate, and the tonsils), Pancreas, Stomach, Trachea, bronchus, and lung. Smoking also increases the risk of dying from cancer and other diseases in cancer patients and survivors

Quit Smoking

We all know the health risks of smoking, but that doesn’t make it any easier to kick the habit. Whether you’re an occasional teen smoker or a lifetime pack-a-day smoker, quitting can be really tough. It’s never too late to quit smoking. Quitting smoking now improves your health and reduces your risk of heart disease, cancer, lung disease, and other smoking-related illnesses.

To successfully stop smoking, you’ll need to address both the addiction and the habits and routines that go along with it. But it can be done. With the right support and quit plan, any smoker can kick the addiction—even if you’ve tried and failed multiple times before. The four steps may help:

1) Your personal stop smoking plan
A good quit plan addresses both the short-term challenge of stopping smoking and the long-term challenge of preventing relapse.
2) Identify your smoking triggers
The best things you can do to help yourself quit is to identify the things that make you want to smoke, including specific situations, activities, feelings, and people.

3) Coping with nicotine withdrawal symptoms
Once you stop smoking, you’ll likely experience a number of physical symptoms as your body withdraws from nicotine.
4) Manage cigarette cravings
While avoiding smoking triggers will help reduce your urge to smoke, you probably can’t avoid cigarette cravings entirely. Fortunately, cravings don’t last long—typically, about 5 or 10 minutes. If you’re tempted to light up, remind yourself that the craving will soon pass and try to wait it out.