Passive Smoking Essays - Smoking, Passive Smoking, Tar, Cigarette

Passive Smoking What is secondhand smoke? ? Secondhand smoke is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe, or cigar, and the smoke exhaled from the lungs of smokers. ? This mixture contains more than 4,000 substances, more than 40 of which are known to cause cancer in humans or animals and many of which are strong irritants. ? Secondhand smoke is also called environmental tobacco smoke (ETS); exposure to secondhand smoke is called involuntary smoking, or passive smoking. Passive smoking artery damage partially heals Damage to the lining of arteries of young adults caused by passive smoking partially heals 2 years after the exposure to smoke, but the artery lining is still not as healthy as the arteries of people who had never beenexposed to smoke. 60 young adults, all nonsmokers, between the ages of 15 and 39 were used as essential data for further analysis. Twenty had never been exposed to tobacco smoke at home or in the workplace for any amount of time. Another group of 20 had been passively exposed for at least 1 hour per day for 2 or more years. A third group of 20 had been exposed to smoke at home, work, or both for at least 1 hour per day for 2 years. The researchers found that dilation of the blood vessels was much better in former passive smokers than in current passive smokers, although both groups were impaired compared with nonsmoking controls. Not surprisingly, former passive smokers who had been away from smoky environments longer had better arterial function than those who had been exposed to passive smoking as recently as 2 years prior to the study. Passive smoking has been consistently linked to an increased risk for coronary heart disease and may be responsible for more than 30 cardiovascular deaths annually in the US alone, the researchers note. Secosndhand smoke is a serious health risk to children. The developing lungs of young children are also affected by exposure to secondhand smoke. Infants and young children whose parents smoke are among the most seriously affected by exposure to secondhand smoke, being at increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections such as pneumonia and bronchitis. EPA estimates that passive smoking is responsible for between 150,000 and 300,000 lower respiratory tract infections in infants and children under 18 months of age annually, resulting in between 7,500 and 15,000 hospitalizations each year. Children exposed to secondhand smoke are also more likely to have reduced lung function and symptoms of respiratory irritation like cough, excess phlegm, and wheeze. Passive smoking can lead to buildup of fluid in the middle ear, the most common cause of hospitalization of children for an operation. Asthmatic children are especially at risk. EPA estimates that exposure to secondhand smoke increases the number of episodes and severity of symptoms in hundreds of thousands of asthmatic children. EPA estimates that between 200,000 and 1,000,000 asthmatic children have their condition made worse by exposure to secondhand smoke. Passive smoking may also cause thousands of non-asthmatic children to develop the condition each year. Pregnant women should be strongly encouraged to avoid spending time in places where people smoke, as u denoted from all the reasearch I've gone through. There was a survey made to see weather women have been exposed to passive smoking at home or at work. Women completed a questionnaire about exposure to passive smoking, then researches analyzed the data, they saw hat out of one thousand women which have given birth before and at the same time were exposed to second hand smoking, 70 women had babies with physical and/or mental disabilities. Cigarette smoke can damage your heart even if youu aren't a smoker. Research shows that the second-hand smoke that many people are exposed to is enough to produce damage to their cardiovasscular system. Researchers identsified carbon monoxide and nicotine in environmental tobacco smoke that increases the risk of heart disease. Here are a couple of examples. First, the carbon monoxide competes with oxygen in the red blood cells. It not only reduces the amount of oxygen in the heart, it also makes the heart use oxygen less efficiently. Researchers say exposure to second-hand smoke causes between 30,000 and 60,000 fatal heart attacks each year and between 90,000 and 180,000 non-fatal heart attacks. Researchers claim exposure to second-hand