The adverse effects of smoking may be concentrated on your lungs and heart, but you should know that nearly every part of your body is negatively affected by smoking.
Bushwick Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing wants you to read what can happen to all of your body parts, and hopefully, it serves as motivation for you or a loved one to quit smoking.
Brain
Nicotine is said to be as addictive as heroin, so its withdrawal symptoms can be severe – anxiety, irritability, and strong cravings for nicotine can ensue.
Head and Face
Smoking can reduce your oxygen supply, and this includes the cochlea, which is in your inner ear. This could cause you to have balance issues and suffer mild to moderate hearing loss.
Smoking increases your risk of cataracts and macular degeneration, and nicotine can adversely affect your vision at night.
A whole host of issues can happen in your mouth. Mouth sores, ulcers, and gum disease is more likely if you smoke, as are cavities and general tooth decay. All this along with an increased risk of mouth and throat cancer.
Your appearance could change, as well. Your skin tone can dull, and wrinkles can appear by your early 30s, making you appear much older in your middle-age years.
Heart
Simply put, smoking raises your blood pressure and, over time, weakens your heart, which makes it less able to pump blood to other parts of your body. Smoking also makes your blood “sticky,” which means blood clots can more easily form that could affect your legs, heart, or brain (stroke).
Lungs
It should be common knowledge that smoking damages lungs. Smoking inflames the airways and tissues in your lungs, causing you to wheeze or be short of breath. It also destroys the alveoli (tiny air sacs) in the lungs. Since they do not grow back, people develop emphysema once enough alveoli are destroyed.
Stomach
Smokers are more likely to carry excess weight and develop type 2 diabetes, which is harder to control when you’re an active smoker.
To learn more about Bushwick Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing and all of the services they offer, visit http://bushwick-center.facilities.centershealthcare.org/.
