Tobacco use effects

It is known that over 1.1 Billion people globally use tobacco in some form or another. This is over 1/6 of the worlds population. Now i am not trying to preach here because i believe that people should be able to do whatever they want, but i would like to talk about the health effects of using tobacco in its most popular form.

Generally tobacco is smoked in the form if cigarettes, so this is what i will focus on. There are a multitude of health concerns that can happen to a person when they smoke. Generally speaking the part of the body that is most affected is the cardiovascular system. Particularly things like heart attacks, cardiovascular disease, asthma, emphysema, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and cancer in the form of lung, larynx, and tongue. I wont explain individually what each of these health risks are, but for a rule of thumb, they are all very bad and could easily kill you or severely cut down on your quality of life.

Another key to your chance of developing these problems is the amount you smoke. For example if you have less than half a pack (10) a day, your mortality rate increases by 40% over a non smoker. Double that amount to around a pack a day and it increases to 70%. For a pack and a half a day is shoots up to 90%, and for two packs a day it increases to 120%. This mortality rate is essentially the chance of you getting lung cancer for instance over a non smoker. If you look at those numbers they are pretty bleak.

I could go on forever with all of the risks, carcinogens, SIDS, etc. but i think that you can get the picture from just what i have already said. You can smoke if you please but you just need to know that it is a gamble, and your life is at stake.

Melanoma

Melanoma is a type of rare skin cancer, but in terms of skin cancer related deaths it is the major culprit. The more serious type of melanoma is "malignant melanoma". This kind, like most forms of cancer is the uncontrolled growth of a specific type of cells. With Melanoma it is the pigment cell in our skin. I am interested in learning about this type of cancer because I knew people who suffered from this malignant melanoma and it seems to be a serious problem. Every year 48,000 people die from Melanoma.

It is known that it affects Caucasians and males most commonly, so i personally would be at a greater risk for this. Generally there are two causes for a person to develop melanoma. These are a predisposed risk (such as a family member who may have had it previously), and the amount of sun you are exposed to throughout your life. When i say sun, i mean specifically the ultraviolet rays in sunlight, which are the damaging ones. These rays can cause damage to the DNA in your cells, potentially leading to cancer. However it is worthwhile to note that the occasional sunburn is only partially related to the chance of you getting melanoma, but tanning beds that have UV rays have been positively linked to it. There are a few solid ways to prevent the development of melanoma. First you can simply minimize your exposure to direct sunlight. Second, wearing pants instead of shorts, long sleeved shirts, and a hat. This is to protect the areas of your body that regularly receive direct sunlight. Lastly what I found interesting was that sunscreen (even with an SPF over 30) has not been proven to prevent melanoma.

The last thing to think about is the treatment methods because science is always coming up with better methods of treatment for any type of cancer these days. The most common form of treatment is surgery of the afflicted area, where they will completely remove the tumor, and a little of the surrounding area to make sure it is completely gone. Another common form of treatment is chemotherapy. This is where they will use the chemical treatment to try and kill the cancer cells completely. The last type is radiation. this is reserved for people with very localized tumors. this is a last resort type of treatment, as it generally does not provide a long term solution for the problem.

However I think the best thing to do would be preventative maintenance. if you can take the steps to prevent melanoma before it starts you wont have to worry about it later in your life.

The Problem of Air Pollution

When people think about air pollution or smog they think of big cities and places far away, like Beijing for the summer olympics this year where smog was a serious problem leading up to the games for the athletes. But the truth is, smog is a serious problem for everyone, and poses serious health effects for all of us.

Technically smog is a combination of of the words smoke and fog and nowadays is generally a result of car emmissions reactiong with the atmosphere and you can see it when its hit by sunlight. After doing a little reading on the internet i found out how much of a problem smog can be. Some large metropolitian areas around te world seiously affected by smog are London, Mexico City, Tehran, Los Angeles, and many places in Indochina. This type of heavy air pollution seriously affects the elderly, children, and people with cardiovascular conditions such as asthma or emphysema. Smog can irritate the eyes, nose and lungs, and cause shortness of breath and coughing. Specifically in the nasal passages it can dry out the protective membranes in the nose and interfere with the bodys ability to fight off infections, making people more susceptibility to getting sick. It is a fact that respiratory deaths are always increased when there are increased levels of smog in a certain place. The last piece of information that perhaps is most inportant is that smog is responsible for depleting the ozone layer that protects the earth from the suns damaging UV rays. Once the ozone layer is depleted or destroyed in a certain area it can not be replaced and this is a very serious problem we are trying to deal with.

This blog was simply written to inform you about smog, and the harmful effects it can have, and perhaps we can find a way in the future of reducing of emmissions and tackling the serious smog problem we all face.