Did you know: the most toxic thing in cigarettes is not nicotine

We all know that tobacco is harmful, can lead to diseases such as lung and throat cancer. But do you know what factors in tobacco actually cause these harms?

When talking about tobacco, perhaps the most famous (or notorious) substance is nicotine. Too much talk makes us think that nicotine is a harmful substance in cigarettes, but actually this is just the drug's addictive substance. What really causes harm is the compounds that are produced by the process of burning a cigarette.

The Canadian government's tobacco information page states: there are only about 2500 substances in tobacco leaves, but under the process of burning they transform into 4,000 substances. According to the website of the American Cancer Society (ACS), up to 4,000 substances have up to 70 substances that can cause cancer.

Numerous toxic substances exist in cigarette smoke.

As can be seen in the image above, some typical carcinogens include CO, HCN, Formaldehyde, lead, arsenic, benzene . You can recognize these substances in chemicals in detergents, kill insects or embalming. When we smoke, we have inhaled most of these substances according to the smoke, and not only smokers but also those around us, when inhaled, smoke have the same effect.

Smoke, including the above substances, will be accumulated by inhaling through time as a solid in the respiratory tract, tar or tobacco. Tars are characterized by stickiness and mucus, when covering the cilia of the lungs will reduce the function of cilia (pushing the mucus out). So not only mucus from tobacco smoke, but also other harmful substances easily penetrate the body of smokers through the respiratory tract.

Substances from cigarette smoke can also pass through blood to other parts of the body, so smokers not only suffer from respiratory disease but are also at risk of cardiovascular, diabetes, gum disease and even effects. both fertility .

Long-time smoke will stick to tobacco resin, accumulating in the body.

Not only smokers, the surrounding people also have health risks when inhaling smoke, often called "passive smoking". According to data published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2010, up to 600,000 people die each year from passive smoking, including 165,000 children. It should be noted that the poison from the smoke is not only in the smoke from the cigarette we see, but it can also be in the breath of a person who has just smoked, or circled in the air in narrow spaces. Therefore, just avoiding smoke from cigarettes is not enough.

Nicotine when it comes to the brain will signal to the brain to make dopamine, creating a sense of euphoria.(Artwork: Quitters' Circle).

Nicotine is less harmful than the compounds mentioned above, but it is addictive, making it difficult for smokers to quit. When smoking, nicotine in smoke takes only 10 seconds to reach the brain. Here, receptors will receive nicotine, producing dopamine that creates a refreshing, pleasant feeling to the smoker, increases heart rate and can even reduce stress. However, like other drugs, this feeling is only temporary, and as soon as it loses the body of the smoker, there is a need to get more nicotine to regain the feeling.

The longer you smoke, the more dependent your body will depend on nicotine. The amount of nicotine receptors in the brain will increase with time of smoking, so the people who smoke for a long time, the effects that nicotine brings will be shorter, so they will continue to need more smoking. This is the biggest reason why many addicts cannot quit smoking.

Tobacco possesses too many addictive factors, making it difficult for smokers to know how to stop smoking.

In addition, there are too many addictive factors in tobacco: its addictive effect is quite mild compared to other stimulants, so it does not affect too much to the lives of smokers; Cigarettes are too cheap, easier to buy and less "stigmatized" compared to strong stimulants. All of these factors make a substance very difficult to quit. Many studies have been done and show that an average person will take more than 10 attempts to get rid of the medicine!