Diseases Associated With Smoking

When a person thinks about diseases associated with smoking, cancer or lung cancer is the first disease that comes in his mind. However, this is not the only disease associated with smoking. There are many other diseases that are caused as a result of smoking.

Regular smoking results in cardiovascular diseases, which can lead to death of a person. This is because smoking hardens the walls of arteries due to cholesterol deposition etc and when arteries become very narrow or are blocked, blood clots starts forming.

This situation is called as arteriosclerosis. Though hardening of arteries with age is a natural process, smoking accelerates the same and as a result, arteriosclerosis occurs.

Blood clots in arteries, either in brain or heart which are called as coronary and cerebral thrombosis respectively, are cause for sudden death. As per the study, it is found that coronary thrombosis in smokers occur 10 years earlier as compared to non-smokers.

Cancer is other fatal disease associated with smoking. Smokers are more prone to suffer from cancer as compared to non-smokers. Three common types of cancers associated with smoking are lung cancer, mouth cancer and throat cancer.

It has been found that about 90% of lung cancers in U.S occur due to smoking. Smokers are likely to suffer from mouth cancer 400% times higher than non-smokers. Other types of cancers associated with smoking are cancer of bladder, esophagus, pancreas etc. In some cases, smoking has also led to cervical cancer.

Smoking is also a reason for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, which is called as COPD in short term. COPD is basically a collective term and is used for conditions in which breathing becomes difficult for a person due to blocked airflow.

Emphysema is a common COPD associated with smoking in which air sacs inside the lung are damaged by smoking, which causes breathlessness. Other COPD is chronic bronchitis in which mucus comes out with coughing.

About 80% of COPD happen due to smoking. COPD generally starts with the age of 35 and progresses with age. Damage caused to the lungs under COPD is permanent but if a person quits smoking, decline rate of the lung capacity is reduced.

Smoking also put bad affects on asthma and its medication. Similarly, it raises the blood pressure in the body and causes hypertension. Hypertension may lead to heart stroke in some cases. Smoking also puts bad affect on eyes and may cause cataract. In some cases, smoking has also resulted in sexual impotence.