Cigarette smoking nearly affects every organ in the human body and causes many deaths. Some of the health problems related to cigarette smoking include lung and oral cancer, stroke, cataracts, and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. Cigarette smoking has a massive impact on the lungs because the air a person breath goes direct to the lungs. In this case, cigarette smoking affects the lungs because the air taken has a variety of additional chemicals that are harmful to the lungs. Lungs complications begin after years of smoking, where the first signs of lung damages are spotted. A person’s lungs have a natural and protective system that helps in preventing irritation, such as smoke from damaging it. Cilia are small hairs found in the lungs that help in cleaning. The cells that produce mucus in the lungs grow in size and number, which results in thickness. At this point, the lungs are unable to clean the excess mucus, which leads to clogging of the airways. Due to continuous exposure to smoke, the cilia and the natural mucus found on the lining of the lungs damage, and no longer play their roles ( McCance and Huether 2010).
A large amount of mucus present in the lungs causes infections and makes it defenseless. Individuals who are involved in cigarette smoking suffer from continuous coughing. The reason behind this is that the chemicals from tobacco are irritating the lungs, which results in coughing and wheezing (Jaakkola et al.). The alveoli are air sacs that allow the passage of inhaled oxygen to the bloodstream. Cigarette smoking breaks the thin wall of alveoli by enlarging them, which makes it hard for air passage. The air sacs also lose their bounce, which makes it harder to take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. Once the carbon dioxide gets in the bloodstream, it can access any other organ in the body and cause other infections. However, lung damage caused by excessive smoking can return to normalcy if the patient quits smoke.
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Reference
Jaakkola, J. J., Hernberg, S., Lajunen, T. K., Sripaijboonkij, P., Malmberg, L. P., &Jaakkola, M. S. (2019). Smoking and lung function among adults with newly onset asthma. BMJ open respiratory research , 6 (1), e000377.
McCance, K.A. &Huether, S.E. (2010). Pathophysiology: The biologic basis for disease in adults and children (7 th ed.). St. Louis: Mosby.
