Top Ten Facts about Smoking
Looking for some quick facts about smoking? Maybe you need them for a school report or as a point to convince someone else not to smoke. Even if the reader just wants to know for his own curiosity, this list of the top ten facts about smoking will be helpful.
1. Smoking is bad for you. It causes emphysema, lung cancer, and increases the risk of suffering heart attacks. This statement comes from the Department for Stating the Surprisingly Obvious. Menthol cigarettes can relieve mild coughs, but the user is better off by getting Hall’s Cough drops that use menthol as a key ingredient.
2. The practice of smoking originated with Native Americans. Tribes used it sparingly as part of a ritual. European settlers adopted and commercialized the plant. Tobacco farming is a multibillion dollar industry today.
3. Smoking machines do not actually measure how much individual tar a person takes in. The smoking machines are used to test the chemicals in light cigarettes. The numbers produced ease the worries of a smoker, but many smokers inhale the fumes more deeply to get the full effect of the drug.
4. Pipe smoking and cigar smoking causes a person to take in more tobacco and nicotine than cigarette smokers.
5. J.R.R. Tolkien was fond of smoking pipes. Tolkien’s attitudes towards the substance are adopted by Gandalf and the Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings and its prequel, The Hobbit.
6. John Wayne smoked cigarettes. This fact makes it unsurprising that he died from lung cancer.
7. Nicotine is a stimulant. Taking too much of the substance can cause jitters. It also causes a person’s blood vessels to constrict which can raise blood pressure.
8. The nicotine found in cigarettes raises of a level called dopamine in the brain. Dopamine triggers the pleasure centers and is one of the reasons for the addictive nature of the substance.
9. Monoamine oxidase, a chemical found in cigarettes, has been linked to reduction in the rates of Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease.
10. Nicotine gums and patches help a smoker kick cigarettes by gradually lowering the dosage. A new delivery method, called e-cigarettes, does not require the burning of the tobacco leaf for the drug delivery.
Smoking pipes, cigarettes or cigars is far from a healthy habit. The verdict is still out on e-cigarettes. The best course of action is to quit smoking. And if you’re going to be around smokers, your best bet is to talk with them outside to reduce you second-hand smoke exposure risk.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 23rd, 2010 at 3:10 pm and is filed under Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.