Secondhand smoke refers to the smoke inhaled by non-smokers from smokers and the smoke emitted into the environment when cigarettes burn. Compared with direct smoking, secondhand smoke can make people inhale more than 2 times of nicotine, 3 times of tar and 50 times of strong carcinogens. Long-term secondhand smoke will accelerate skin aging, reduce immunity, and may also cause various diseases and canceration; Children who have been exposed to secondhand smoke for a long time are more likely to become addicted to cigarettes.
As we all know, smoking is harmful to health. Different cigarettes release different chemicals when lit, and substances harmful to human body can be roughly divided into six categories:
Aldehydes, nitrides, olefins, these substances have a stimulating effect on the respiratory tract.
Nicotine can stimulate sympathetic nerve and make smokers dependent.
Amines, cyanide and heavy metals are all toxic substances.
Radioactive substances such as phenylpropyl pyrene, arsenic, cadmium, methylhydrazine and aminophenol. These substances are carcinogenic.
Phenolic compounds and formaldehyde, etc. These substances have the effect of accelerating cancer.
Carbon monoxide reduce that ability of red blood cells to deliver oxygen to the whole body.
How harmful is long-term secondhand smoke?
First, it affects memory.
Secondhand smoke will have a great impact on people's memory, because nicotine and other substances contained in secondhand smoke will aggravate the situation of cerebrovascular sclerosis, which is not conducive to the development of blood vessels in the brain and is very harmful to the brain. Therefore, smoking is easy to cause memory loss.
Scientific research has proved that if you smoke secondhand smoke regularly, your brain's memory ability will be reduced by about 20% compared with normal people. If there are people who smoke secondhand smoke in your family, children's memory will be greatly reduced, which will affect their physical and mental development. Secondhand smoke has obvious negative effects on brain function, which may lead to cognitive diseases such as dementia.
Second, the harm to pregnant women
Cigarettes contain tar, nicotine and other substances. In the early pregnancy, due to these substances, the function of placenta is destroyed, leading to termination of pregnancy or spontaneous abortion. The more times and time pregnant mothers smoke passively, the greater the risk of miscarriage or premature delivery.
Nicotine in second-hand smoke can also act on the vascular endothelium of pregnant mothers, inducing vasospasm and vasoconstriction, which leads to an increase in the probability of pregnant mothers suffering from pregnancy-induced hypertension.
Pregnant mothers who have been exposed to second-hand smoke for a long time have worse resistance than ordinary pregnant mothers and are prone to discomfort. In addition, they can also stimulate the respiratory tract and cause respiratory diseases.
Third, for the baby.
After the pregnant mother absorbs the toxic substances in second-hand smoke, these toxic substances reach the baby through the placenta, which seriously affects the growth and development of the fetus and causes birth defects such as cleft lip and palate, anencephaly, congenital heart disease and limb deformity.
As mentioned earlier, harmful substances in cigarettes will destroy the function of placenta. If the placenta function is damaged, it will lead to fetal hypoxia and malnutrition, fetal hypoxia, developmental retardation and fetal distress, and even serious abortion or premature delivery.
Studies have shown that pregnant mothers who smoke passively occasionally or every day have an increased risk of giving birth to NTD children compared with pregnant mothers who do not smoke passively. (NTD refers to neural tube malformation of offspring).
Fourth, induce a variety of diseases
The smoke produced by tobacco combustion contains more than 7000 compounds, of which at least 69 are carcinogens. Carbon monoxide in tobacco will reduce the ability of blood to absorb oxygen, while nicotine will make the heart beat faster and blood pressure rise. When coronary artery blood vessels contract, the blood supply is reduced or blocked, which will cause myocardial infarction.
The remaining harmful chemicals will make the cilia of bronchial epithelial cells shorter and irregular, thus reducing the resistance and becoming easily infected, which will lead to bronchitis, emphysema, pulmonary heart disease, lung cancer and so on. In addition to these, it will also lead to various malignant tumors, such as oral cancer, nasopharyngeal cancer, laryngeal cancer, esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, rectal cancer, breast cancer, acute leukemia and so on.
It is reported that the number of deaths caused by smoking in the world is as high as 6 million every year, which exceeds the sum of deaths caused by tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria. This shows how harmful tobacco is. For the health of you and your family, please refuse smoking and secondhand smoke.
The most direct way to prevent the harm of secondhand smoke is to stay away from secondhand smoke.
If the room is polluted by secondhand smoke, it is suggested to ventilate more, or spray some toilet water to dispel the smell of smoke, or we can go out for a walk when someone smokes, or we can consider air purification.
These methods can reduce the harm of second-hand smoke to human body to a certain extent, and can also place some plants indoors to purify second-hand smoke. Such as aloe, cactus, Christmas tree, etc.