Quit Smoking and Breathe in Clean Air
How does smoking tobacco harm your lungs?
India's tobacco use is increasing at an alarming rate. There are 120 million smokers in India with nearly 10 million people dying from smoking every year. India is the second largest consumer and producer of tobacco in the world. You can find a wide range of tobacco products available across the country for low prices. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), India accounts for 12% of the world’s smokers. Nearly 267 million adults, aged 15 and above in India are active users of tobacco, according to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey India, 2016-17.
Effects of Tobacco on Your Lungs
Tobacco is found in various commonly sold products, such as khaini, betel quid, zarda, gutka, bidi, cigarettes, and hookah. People who smoke tobacco suffer from several health problems. It not only leads to a massive loss of life but also harms the country's economy and social system. Most importantly, smoking damages the lungs and can lead to serious lung conditions.
Risk Associated with Smoking Tobacco
People who smoke tobacco experience a high risk of lung disease, including lung cancer. It is also associated with serious illnesses like heart disease, stroke, and mouth cancer. Smoking affects the airways and small air sacs of the lungs. The effect of smoking is degenerative, meaning the longer you smoke, the more your lungs are affected. It does take a few years for the lungs to degrade. Smoking tobacco hinders the lungs' ability to deliver oxygen to the cells in your body and also causes serious lung conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Other common lung-related infections include pneumonia and tuberculosis. These conditions also aggravate existing lung conditions like asthma in people.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease:
COPD is an overarching term covering different lung-related diseases such as bronchiectasis, chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, commonly referred to as COPD, is a chronic inflammatory lung disease that causes obstructed airflow from the lungs COPD interferes with normal breathing and is permanent and progressive, meaning the disease stays with you for your entire life and gets worse over time. In COPD, the lungs struggle to absorb enough oxygen to provide it to the rest of the body. Find out more about COPD and early symptoms here.
Emphysema
Emphysema is another respiratory disease that also affects the air sacs in your lungs. It causes the air sacs in your lungs to deteriorate and deflate. Once these air sacs deflate, the surface area of the lungs decreases, making it more difficult for the oxygen you breathe in to be absorbed into your bloodstream. As a result, the crucial organs in your body receive less oxygen, causing tissue injury and eventual organ death. There is no cure for emphysema, but different treatments can relieve symptoms and prevent further lung damage. Emphysema patients are strictly prohibited from smoking as it worsens the condition even further.
Chronic Bronchitis
Chronic bronchitis is also a common condition in people who have smoked tobacco for an extended period of time. In this disease, the airways produce excessive mucus that constantly needs to be coughed or expelled out. The airways become swollen, and coughing out mucus turns into a chronic condition. Over time, the airways are blocked by scar tissue and mucus, which can result in lung infections, like pneumonia. Chronic bronchitis is not curable, but proper treatment can reduce the symptoms. The first step is to quit smoking to keep the symptoms under control and prevent lung damage from getting worse.
The Takeaway
Tobacco is one of the biggest causes of life-threatening lung diseases such as lung cancer, COPD, emphysema and more. Some of the most severe lung damage is preventable by simply quitting smoking, allowing you to breathe and live better. COPD and other lung-related diseases and conditions caused by smoking tobacco require long term oxygen therapy to increase the amount of oxygen absorbed by the patient.
Sanrai provides FDA-cleared oxygen concentrators and other quality oxygen therapy products to help you breathe better.
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Sources:
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/smoking-and-respiratory-diseases
https://share.upmc.com/2016/04/how-smoking-affects-lungs/
