6.2 Evaluate the effects of smoking on body systems.

Smoking has a devastating effect on your body, not only medically but physically too. Smoking can damage different areas of your body in different ways just with the harmful chemicals. Nicotine is a drug that stimulates your brain cells, it also causes narrowing of the blood vessels that increases blood pressure, this then makes the heart work harder which can result in an atheroma or a blood clot.Carbon monoxide is a gas that leaves you feeling breathless, tar is a sticky substance (one being carcinogen) that are cancer producing. It stops cilia mucous membranes from moving this causes them to build up with mucus. Coughing can damage alveoli resulting in emphysema; this is a serious condition as it prevents gaseous exchange taking place. ‘The chemicals inhaled by smoking can effect the electrical and chemical process in which the brain relays messages though the central nervous system’. (http://www.smokefreereality.com/effects.php)

Smoking affects our bodies in many ways:·

• Skin becomes thinner and fine lines and wrinkles occur·
• Loss of sense of smell and taste.·
• More likely to develop cancer in the mouth and larynx.·
• More likely to develop cancer of the trachea.·
• Some cilia are destroyed or damaged.·
• More likely to get bronchitis.·
• Persistent coughing can lead to emphysema.·
• Twice as likely to have a heart attack.·
• More likely to develop lung cancer.·
• More likely to develop stomach cancer.·
• More likely to develop ulcers.

By stopping smoking it can have almost instant results on helping your body recover and over time you can repair your body and prevent long term illnesses and diseases.(Wright, D (2000) Human Physiology and Health, Cambridge publishing management, page 52