What Does tobacco Mean
The snuff is a plant native to the American continent with large leaves, flowers arranged in clusters and fruit that houses numerous seeds. Belonging to the nightshade , it is characterized by being a narcotic plant thanks to the presence of nicotine.
The leaf of the plant and the product obtained from it are also known as tobacco. It is important to note that tobacco is stimulating : it can increase blood pressure and cause tachycardia. In addition, due to the substances it contains, it can cause addiction .
The usual thing is that tobacco is consumed wrapped in paper, forming a cigar or cigarette . The consumer must light one end of it and place the other end in their mouth, then inhale and make the tobacco burn. The last step is to exhale the smoke.
Tobacco is often defined as a legal drug , since most countries allow its sale. In any case, as its consumption causes serious damage to health, its commercialization is usually restricted.
Smoking can cause pulmonary emphysema , chronic bronchitis , and cancer , among other diseases . That is why there is a paradox: while the State authorizes the sale and consumption of tobacco legally, it develops campaigns to discourage its consumption. This particularity does not occur with other drugs whose commercialization is prohibited due to their effects on health.
The prohibition of smoking in public spaces such as restaurants and bars and the obligation to include messages about the harmful effects of tobacco in cigarette boxes are some of the measures taken by the authorities to minimize its consumption.
We know that a large number of chemicals travel in tobacco smoke that can cause harm to both smokers and those around them; However, this fact does not lead many people to look around before lighting a cigarette. The reason why the campaigns do not stop is that tobacco is much more harmful than we think: it is enough to breathe a small portion of smoke to suffer some of its consequences.
Put in numbers, there are more than 7000 substances found in tobacco smoke, and 250 of them are known to be harmful to our health ; in this last group we find carbon monoxide, ammonia and hydrogen cyanide. As if that were not enough, of these 250 we know that at least 69 of them can cause cancer , as occurs with the following: acetaldehyde, arsenic, beryllium, vinyl chloride, cadmium, formaldehyde, nickel and polonium-210.
In addition to being the leading cause of cancer, tobacco smoking damages almost every organ and system in the body, as well as weakening overall health. But when we talk about tobacco and cancer, we should not only think about the lungs , since it also causes cancer of the esophagus, mouth, kidney, larynx, throat, liver, bladder, stomach, pancreas, cervix, colon and rectum. We must not ignore acute myeloid leukemia, another consequence of this vice.
Outside of the different types of cancer, tobacco causes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, stroke, rheumatoid arthritis, cataracts, osteoporosis, and aortic aneurysm, among other disorders. On the other hand, it is very harmful for asthma sufferers and increases the risk of respiratory infections such as tuberculosis and pneumonia. For non-smokers who are inadvertently exposed to smoke, the consequences can be deadly; for example, it increases the chance of heart disease or stroke by up to 30% , can disrupt fetal development, and increases the risk of sudden infant death.