Tobacco: A Deadly Killer

By: Will Parsons

How many people really know how tobacco affects us, or even what the substance is?  By definition, tobacco is the preparation of the nicotine-rich leaves of an American plant, which are cured by a process of dying and fermentation for smoking or chewing. We all are very knowledgeable of what it is, although most of us only have a meager understanding of the effects that it has on our bodies. However, an inference can be formed that its effects are negative, and this is proven through the 480,000 deaths in America each year that tobacco causes. This makes sense considering that about 90% of all lung cancer deaths are tied to the use of tobacco smoke. There are so many ways to consume tobacco as well, some of which include tobacco cigarettes, cigars, tobacco vape, chewing tobacco, snuff boxes, dissolvable tobacco, and even a tobacco hookah. Tobacco is all around our modern world. Nonetheless, it's slowly killing our population with its hazardous effects.

Tobacco’s effects on the brain are nearly as horrifying as the rest. When consumed, tobacco goes straight into the bloodstream. When entered into the blood, the nicotine inside the tobacco almost instantly triggers the adrenal glands to discharge the hormone epinephrine, otherwise known as adrenaline. However, then the adrenaline stimulates the central nervous system and increases breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure. Several of these effects could undermine or weaken your blood vessels, cause blood coagulation, or possibly generate a stroke, or deprive your organs and tissues of oxygen. Tobacco’s nicotine also increases levels of dopamine, which gives you a high. Sounds like an even-handed set of consequences, right?

Tobacco doesn’t exclusively have negative effects on the brain; tobacco affects the lungs in negative ways as well. When smoking tobacco, the cells that create mucus in the lungs go through an intensification-like process. The cells increase in size, as well as increase the overall number of cells. The lungs cannot adequately clean the additional mucus, so this leads to airways being clogged by the mucus. Moreover, the excess mucus leaves you apt for further infection. Smoking tobacco also inflames and agitates the lungs, and this can lead to excessive coughing. Smoked tobacco also dismantles your lungs and lung tissue, which decreases the amount of air space and blood vessels in your lungs. Less oxygen to sections of the body is just one consequence to less airspace and blood vessels in your lungs. Cilia are bristle-like hairs that line and cleanse the lungs. Tobacco smoke diminishes the movement of cilia which can lead to not having your lungs sanitary. Only one cigarette could slow the action of cilia and reduce the number of cilia in the lungs.

Tobacco especially has disastrous effects on the body, especially the bones and muscles. Smoking tobacco affects the bones, making them insubstantial, which makes you more prone to bone-related diseases such as osteoporosis and bone fracture. Additionally, tobacco causes your muscles to prolong recovery. So as an outcome, the speed of your body’s curative process deteriorates, and another repercussion of this is that the muscle will tear, as well as the inflammation of tendons. When the muscle is inadequately healing itself, it will conclude in muscle inflammation. Muscle inflammation provokes you to be fatigued and sore more frequently than you would have if you didn’t use tobacco products. A curtailment of blood supply to the bones is drawn to the use of tobacco. And the nicotine that’s inside of tobacco will depreciate the production of bone-producing cells known as osteoblasts, so they overall make less, strong bones.

          Although there are so many ways to use tobacco and get drawn in, doing so is reprehensible in the long run. The effects tobacco has on you will outnumber that little dopamine rush ten to one every time. Smoking, chewing, or even inhaling this substance could lead to a life of distress and suffering. Tobacco isn’t just for old guys anymore, and it’s becoming modernized and used in too many ways to the point where it’s essentially unavoidable.