Smoking has Immediate, Adverse Effects on the Body

The World Health Organization calls tobacco the leading cause of preventable death in the world. In December, the WHO launched a campaign against cigarette smoking in Africa, saying a rapidly growing population is creating “larger and more accessible markets” on the continent for tobacco companies.

While the risks of cancer and heart disease are generally well-known, smoking has many other effects on the body.



VOA
The act of lighting a cigarette and taking a puff is simple enough, but it triggers complex physical changes within the body. And Dr. Ana Navas-Acien says those changes begin within seconds of inhaling.

“The respiratory airway is very effective in absorbing tobacco and all the tobacco components. Tobacco has thousands of components, including many toxicants and many carcinogens. And so these components go immediately to the blood stream, to the respiratory tract,” she says.

Carcinogens are substances that can lead to the development of cancer, a well-known risk of smoking. But Navas-Acien, professor of preventive medicine at Johns Hopkins University, says cancer can be a long-term consequence of tobacco smoking. There are much quicker unhealthy effects, such as nicotine addiction.

“The most addictive component in tobacco is nicotine. And so nicotine reaches the brain in less than a second. So it’s like a peak of nicotine and that immediate response to nicotine is where the addictive power of tobacco is,” she says.

The brain actually has receptors for nicotine – structures that receive and bind to specific substances.