A person who doesn’t smoke, but who is regularly around those who smoke, is also exposed to the health risks of cigarette smoking. In fact, many people are not even aware of how harmful it is to breathe secondhand smoke! Check out a few hazards of passive smoking.
1. Can cause lung cancer
It’s not a secret that smoking can cause lung cancer. Breathing secondhand smoke is a trigger for lung cancer too. If you live with people who smoke or you are regularly exposed to it, try to stop or limit any contact you can have with secondhand smoke.
2. Causes many respiratory and breathing problems
Smoking itself can cause a lot of respiratory and breathing problems. Non-smokers who breathe in secondhand smoke can often have respiratory problems. Secondhand smoke can irritate and worsen asthma symptoms and allergies, bring on strong coughs, and cause breathing difficulties and wheezing.
3. Increases your risk of having heart attacks
Regardless of your age, secondhand smoke can increase your risk of having a heart attack. It’s also been proven to cause strokes and heart disease! Regular exposure to secondhand smoke has harmful effects on your heart and blood vessels, so try to stay away from smokers.
4. There is no risk-free level of exposure to tobacco smoke
One of the most important things to know about passive smoking is that there’s no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. It’s not good to be exposed even once a day or once a week. Protect yourself and do not breathe secondhand smoke!
5. Disease and premature death
Chemicals in cigarettes make smoking extremely harmful since they are quite toxic. Secondhand smoke exposure causes disease and premature death not only in children but in adults as well! Some of the chemicals found in cigarettes are vinyl chloride, formaldehyde, arsenic ammonia, and hydrogen cyanide.
6. Passive smoking is dangerous for children
Secondhand smoke is particularly harmful to children. They’re still building and strengthening their immune systems, which are not as strong as an adult’s immunity system. Some of the side effects kids may experience from passive smoking include asthma triggers, slowed lung growth, ear infections, bronchitis, wheezing, coughing, colds, and pneumonia.
7. Presents the deadly risk of SIDS
Secondhand smoke is extremely dangerous for babies and small children to breathe since it presents the deadly risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). If you have a small baby, protect her or him from breathing secondhand smoke!
Smoking itself is a very bad and unhealthy habit, but breathing in someone else’s secondhand smoke comes in a close second. According to the American Lung Association, passive smoking causes about 3,400 deaths from lung cancer, and from 22,700 to 69,600 deaths from heart diseases each year. So try to stay away from all those smokers! Do you know any other hazards of passive smoking? Share your thoughts, please!
