Smoking is a serious health concern of our times. It poses a grave threat to smokers as well as non-smokers. When people who do not smoke inhale the smoke from a lit end of a cigarette or inhale the smoke exhaled from a smoker, they breathe in second hand smoke also called as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). This form of smoking, where non-smokers accidentally breathe in tobacco smoke, is called involuntary or passive smoking. Make no mistake, passive smoking is harmful and leads to disease and death.

Health hazards to adults:
The most important repercussion of tobacco smoking is its direct link to lung cancer. Carcinogens (cancer causing substances) present in tobacco also cause cancer of the larynx (voice box), pharynx, nasal sinuses, stomach, rectum, urinary bladder, brain and breast.

Smoking has a direct link to heart disease. It increases the risk of getting a stroke or a heart attack.

Smoking affects sperm quality in men and may lead to reduced fertility in long time smokers.

In pregnant women who smoke, depression, miscarriages and stillbirths are more common than in women who are non-smokers.
Smoking is known to cause severe dementia.

Health hazards to children:
In children exposed to second hand smoke, lung cancer, brain cancer, lymphoma and leukemia are seen.

Exposure to tobacco smoke increases the risk of acquiring asthma in children. In children who are already suffering from asthma, it increases the frequency of attacks and worsens them.

In infants, tobacco smoke has led to an increased incidence of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), also known as cot death.

Smoke irritates the upper respiratory tract leading to sore throat and dry cough.

It impairs lung function and causes lower respiratory tract infection like bronchitis and pneumonia.

When children who are exposed to smoke contract flu, it is more severe and leads to an increased hospital stay and even admission to the ICU to get better.

Smoking is also responsible for bacterial meningitis and ear infection in children.

BDST: 1734 HRS, MAR-09, 2016
Edited by: Sharmina Islam, Lifestyle Editor