What does cigarettes do to you?
350828
Nothing good! The nicotine causes a temporary feeling of well being, but it is addicting. There are also many other chemicals in it which are harmful. Inhaling these chemicals harms the lungs,organs that are a major detoxifier of the body. That's why smoking kills: the lungs are damaged and the bodies ability to detox itself is greatly diminshed=everything else being gradually poisoned in the body. Cancer is created from the damaged, mutant cells in the lungs...the cancer also spreads to other parts of the body via the circulatory system (capillaries in the lungs and surrounding tissues)...then the body is so toxic it breaks down completely-and dies.
886231
well, your lungs because when you walk,runplay basketball, play tennis or even golf. smoking effects your lungs and slows you down in any physical activity
864796
There is plenty of accurate scientific information available on the effects of nicotine.  If you read it you will hear that it affects acetylcholine receptors and dopamine levels.  Basically, it causes your brain to send you chemicals that "reward" you.  Everytime you get nicotine into your bloodstream, it is like your brain is saying "good job!", even though you probably don't feel euphoric at all...please, please, learn the lesson from your friend and just stop smoking entirely while you still can!
415275
Cancer. Sometimes a cigar...will kill you.
202059
Hi person from outer space.  Which planet are you from and what brought you to visit this planet?  To answer your question, smoking is the process of setting on fire and inhaling dried tobacco leaves that have been shredded and encased in very thin paper (which holds them together).  It is a pleasurable experience because it releases nicotine into the blood stream which makes us humans feel relaxed and happy.  Too much nicotine is poisonous though and can kill people.\n\nThe negative side of smoking is that traces of tar are left in the lungs and this can cause bad problems over time.  Also smoking has been linked to all sorts of cancers.  \n\nAt the moment it is considered very anti-social to smoke cigarettes, and a lot of people are coming under pressure to quit.\n\nAs an ex-smoker myself, I recommend stopping for fitness reasons.  I have found it much easier to do physical activity for extended periods of time since I stopped smoking.  However, I do miss smoking and one of the first things I would do if armageddon was due would be to smoke a pack of cigarettes.
263020
Tobacco is a poison. If enough of it is ingested in can kill.
529505
A lot of questions. First cigarette smoke contains nicotine and Carbon monoxide and tear and further for the body toxic ingredients, which have following effect. Nicotine increases the vascular tension of small arteries, which causes the bloodpressure to rise. There may ba also a transient increase in respiratory rate through a centrally stimulating effect. If a patient has a rapid respiratory rate, it can be caused by insufficient gas exchange through in the lung. The effectiveness of the lungs gas exchange gets worse, through longterm smoking exposure. tear and toxic ingredients seize the function of the microvilli, which are little mobile hairlike formations on the surface of bronchial cells. Their job is to transport little foreign bodies and mucus etc. out of the lung. Small areas of the lung are being plugged up and are getting inflamed. The person developes chronic bronchitis with a decrease of normally functioning lung tissue. Also Atelectasis may develop. \nThere are many reasons, why bloddpressure rises. Smoking is one of them, often it is not clear if smoking or other causes i.e. genetic predeterminatiion are contributing to high blood pressure.\nSecond the blood pressure measured is the pressure created by the left heart. If right heart pressure rises, that means thge left heart is unable to transport enough blood away form the right heart outflow, which can cause eventually pulmonary hypertension or high bloodpressure in the pulmonary arteries (the one going away from the right heart). That happens, when the left heart does not work right.\nFor smokers the blood pressure is normally only high in the left heart outflow system.\nPlasma flow is widely independent from blood systolic  pressure alone. To assess plasma flow, the osmotic venous pressures also need to be known.\nThe body usually tries to maintain homeostasis.\nThat means acutely (when the bloodpressure goes up suddenly) ANP counteracts that development and ANP goes up. Chronically elevated BP would probably not change the ANP Level. Accordingly with Aldosterone. That means the Aldosterone level would go down with sudden elevated BP
113214
Low birth weight, increased risk of birth defects, increased risk of miscarraige. Nicotine is a vasoconstrictor, it constricts your blood vessels, decreasing blood flow within your body. Smoking while your pregnant will decrease the blood flow to the baby. Also nicotine crosses the placenta and can enter the baby's bloodstrem, causing vasoconstriction in the baby's developing system. It's best to quit if you're pregnant, or if you're planning to get pregnant.
867935
It kills them indirectly.\n\nThe smoking releases a rush of neurotransmitters (the chemicals neurons use to transmit signals to one another) at a much higher rate than normal. \n\nTo keep themselves from being overly stimulated, the neurons let the neurotransmitter receptors on their membranes die off.\n\nAs a person smokes more and more, more and mroe recepts are allowed to die.\n\nWhenever the person is not smoking, the neurotransmitter signals return to normal levels but are not received since the neurons let the receptors die off.\n\nWhen a neuron isn't used enough, the brain pretty much kills it to conserve energy/nutrients for the ones that are used.\n\nThe more you smoke, the more smoke is needed to achieve a high and the more brain cells die afterward.
128575
The health effects of tobacco smoking are related to direct tobacco smoking, as well as passive smoking, inhalation of environmental or secondhand tobacco smoke.\n\nThe United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes tobacco use as "the single most important preventable risk to human health in developed countries and an important cause of premature death worldwide".[1]\n\nAn indirect public health problem posed by cigarettes is that of accidental fires, usually linked with consumption of alcohol. Numerous cigarette designs have been proposed, some by tobacco companies themselves, which would extinguish a cigarette left unattended for more than a minute or two, thereby reducing the risk of fire. However the tobacco companies have historically resisted this idea, on the grounds that the nuisance involved in having to relight a cigarette left untouched for too long would reduce their sales. In fact, untreated tobacco formed into a cigarette will extinguish itself relatively quickly if left alone, and as a result cigarette tobacco is treated chemically to allow it to smolder indefinitely.\n\nThe main health risks in tobacco pertain to diseases of the cardiovascular system, in particular smoking being a major risk factor for a myocardial infarction (heart attack), diseases of the respiratory tract such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and emphysema, and cancer, particularly lung cancer and cancers of the larynx and tongue. Prior to World War I, lung cancer was considered to be a rare disease, which most physicians would never see during their career. With the postwar rise in popularity of cigarette smoking, however, came a virtual epidemic of lung cancer.\n\nA person's increased risk of contracting disease is directly proportional to the length of time that a person continues to smoke as well as the amount smoked. However, if someone stops smoking, then these chances steadily although gradually decrease as the damage to their body is repaired.\n\nDiseases linked to smoking tobacco cigarettes include:\n\nlung cancer and other cancers \nstroke \nperipheral vascular disease \nbirth defects of pregnant smokers' offspring \nBuerger's disease (thromboangiitis obliterans) \nimpotence chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema and chronic bronchitis in particular \nMore likely to develop cataracts that may cause blindness \nMore likely to develop cataracts that may cause blindness \n \nThe incidence of lung cancer is highly correlated with smoking.Cigar and pipe smokers tend to inhale less smoke than cigarette smokers, so their risk of lung cancer is lower but is still several times higher than the risk for nonsmokers. Pipe and cigar smokers are also at risk for cancers of the oral cavity, larynx (voice box), or esophagus, a risk which was widely hypothesized before any link between smoking and cancer was scientifically proved as seen in the news coverage of the tobacco-related cancers of two American presidents; Ulysses S. Grant died in 1885 at age sixty-three after a long and painful public battle with throat cancer which was widely assumed at the time to be the result of his lifelong cigar habit, and his successor Grover Cleveland was diagnosed in 1893 with cancer of the left jaw, which was frequently remarked upon by the press and public as the side where he usually had a cigar clamped. Similarly, cancer of the mouth and jaw is also a risk for chewing tobacco. The benefits of smoking cessation are immediate: blood pressure, heart rate, and temperature return to normal range; heart attack risk decreases; ability to smell and taste is enhanced; circulation improves.\n\nIt is generally assumed that the major motivational factor behind smoking is the nicotine it contains. However, the practice of ingesting the smoke from a smoldering leaf generates an enormous number of active chemical compounds, loosely lumped together as 'tar', many of which are biologically react
405326
Smoking at anytime effects your risk for lung cancer. But then again breathing nowadays does with all of the pollution and stuff in the air.
799325
I'm a graduate student in Biomedical Engineering, I study Emphysema (a disease people get when they smoke cigarettes). There are over 4000 toxins in cigarette smoke. Most of them are still unknown. Nicotine is probably the worst toxin as it stops and eventually kills the epithelial cells in the lining of the lung, these cells have tiny hairs that usually "beat" upwards causing the mucus to come up to your throat and get swalloed. With that not working, mucus accumulates in the lung. When you smoke your mucus in filled with those 4000 toxins and your body reacts by secreting an enzyme called "trypsin" into your lungs. Trypsin is the same enzyme that your stomach uses to digest steak. Think of how powerfull it is. After years of smoking, your lungs will have been exposed to so much trypsin that you will litterally have holes in your lung. That is the definition of emphysema. \nYou should tell your BF to stop smoking while he's still young. Maybe you should buy him some nicotine patches and gum for christas. it's going to be a very difficult time so be supportive.\nGood luck!\nAnnie
478662
ANY amount of smoking is harmful to your body. \nThis is from an article by Marie Claire magazine called "what smoke does to your body"\n*Causes strokes. Nicotine reaches the brain 10 seconds after you inhale\n*Gives you bad breath and yellow teeth. Associated with gum disease and mouth cancer\n*Gives you a two times higher risk of heart attack than a non smoker. Just one to five cigs a day can double your risk\n*Raises risk of breast cancer if you started smoking within 5 years of your first menstral period\n*Raises risk for stomach and peptic ulcers\n*In addition to lung cancer, smoking raises risk tenfold of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), a collection of fatal lung diseases\n*increases the odds that you wont ovulate or concieve. Smoking when pregnant increases miscarriage risk by 39%\n*Smokers have more severe PMS and 50% more cramps\n*the longer you smoke, the higher your risk for cervical cancer and colar rectal cancer\n*Hardens your arteries, raising odds for high blood pressure and heart attacks\n*Smoking can dampen libido by constricting blood flow to your clitoris\n*smoking may make bones thinner and more fragile, raising your risk of fractures\n*prematurely ages your skin by 10-20 years
167675
No. Smoking cigarette's doesn't cure anything. Infact it causes problems (don't smoke).
68421
nicotine is like caffiene, its a stimulant. it stimulates bodily functions, including speeding up the heart rate and yes, making you have to take a crap
190278
The same chemicals that are being sucked in by a smoker are being burned and released into the air as smoke as the cigarette/cigar (etc) is burned. In the case of cigarettes, second-hand smoke can be bad if it is prolonged or very often.  The chemicals are breathed in and can damage the lungs, or can be processed into the bloodstream where they can damage cells.  For people who have asthma or other breathing problems, second-hand smoke can worsen their difficulty breathing.  For infants and young children, second-hand smoke can damage developing lungs and cells, and cause lung or heart problems if severe.
291890
A smoker has increased risk of respiratory and vascular complications. Smoking actually creates a tar substance in the lungs and decreases the persons capacity to take in oxygen. Also smokers veins and arteries are constricted from chemicals in the cigarettes. This puts them at a higher risk for blood clot causing stroke.