Tobacco comes from the leaves of the tobacco plant, Nicotiana tabacum. It can be consumed or used as a pesticide and still in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines. The leaves are dried, cured, aged and combined with other ingredients to produce a range of products such as cigarette, cigar, pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco as well as wet and dry snuff.
Leaves from the tobacco plant contains nicotine, which is a stimulant drug. Stimulant drugs act on the central nervous system to speed up the messages travelling between the brain and the body.
When tobacco is smoked, nicotine is absorbed through the membranes of the mouth and upper respiratory tract. Some people believe that smoking “light” or “low tar” cigarette is less harmful than the regular cigarette. However, there is little difference between the amount of chemicals inhaled by people who smoke “light” cigarette or the regular ones. The alkaloid, nicotine, is the most characteristic constituent of tobacco and it is responsible for its addictive nature.
The nicotine present in tobacco is responsible for its addictive nature. Nicotine increases alertness and highness in smokers and prevent drowsiness in some people. It is not only highly addictive for youth; it is a stimulant and it is also poisonous.
Because of the powerfully addictive properties of nicotine, tolerance and dependence develop. Absorption quantity, frequency and speed of tobacco consumption are believed to be directly related to biological strength of nicotine dependence, addiction, and tolerance.
How tobacco affects a person depends on many things, including their size, weight, health, and whether the person is used to taking it. According to The partnership for a tobacco-free Maine, teens and youth are vulnerable to the deadly effects of smoke. Person’s exposed to a certain level of nicotine will always come down with one or more of these medical conditions.
Experts say harms caused by using tobacco include diseases affecting the heart and lungs, withsmoking being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancers).
Tobacco can affect youth activities and athletic performance; it narrows the blood vessels and puts a strain on the heart. It also leads to lack of oxygen and shortness of breath, and it makes smokers run slower than non-smokers.
The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that second-hand smoke causes lung cancer in adults and greatly increases the risk of respiratory illnesses in children and sudden infant death syndrome.
The carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke increases the chance of cardiovascular diseases and children who breathe in second-hand smoke are more likely to develop ear infections, allergies, bronchitis, pneumonia, and asthma.
Smoking causes many diseases and reduces the health of smokers in general. More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined.
It also causes an estimated 90 per cent of all lung cancer deaths in men and 80per cent of all lung cancer deaths in women; an estimated 90 per cent of all deaths from chronic obstructive lung disease are caused by smoking.
Smoking has many adverse reproductive and early childhood effects, including increased risk for— infertility, preterm delivery, stillbirth, low birth weight, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Cardiovascular disease is another cause of death due to smoking; hardening of the arteries is a process that develops over years, when cholesterol and other fats deposit in the arteries, leaving them narrow, blocked or rigid, when the arteries narrow (atherosclerosis), and blood clots are likely to form.
Smoking accelerates the hardening and narrowing process in the arteries. It starts earlier and blood clots are two to four times more likely, cardiovascular disease can take many forms depending on which blood vessels are involved, and all of them are more common in people who smoke.Smokers tend to develop coronary thrombosis 10 years earlier than non-smokers, and make up nine out of 10 heart bypass patients.
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