Smoking destroys your lungs

Jan 14, 2008 19:06 GMT  ·  By

Oxygen enters into our bloodstream through the lungs, while the toxic carbon dioxide is also expelled through them. We call this process breathing. The lungs have a system of tubes called bronchia. Bronchia ramify into gradually smaller tubes that can be as thin as a human hair. At the end of the thinnest tubes, called bronchioles, the alveoli are grouped, resembling small sacs where the gas exchange takes place.

Bronchia and bronchioles have a system of capturing and transferring residues. Their mucosae continuously produce a sticky mucus that catches dust, dirt and germs. Tiny hairs, called cilia, permanently push the mucus upwards, to be eliminated through coughing. This is the case of the healthy lungs. In the case of inflamed or ill lungs, this effective system does no longer work.

1.Bronchitis and emphysema are regular diseases of the lungs. In the case of bronchitis, the bronchia mucosae inflame and produce too much mucus, causing the narrowing of the respiratory ways, which results in difficult breathing and accumulation of excessive mucus amounts. The accumulated mucus causes coughing, which brings the mucus upwards, as phlegm.

The tobacco smoke is the main cause of bronchitis, because it irritates the bronchia mucosae and kills the cilia. Smog, industrial fumes and contaminated air can cause bronchitis as well.

2.Emphysema consists in difficult breathing, but not accompanied by prolonged coughing and phlegm elimination. In this case, the alveolar sacs, which have a large surface, bust and unite in larger sacs, which have smaller surfaces and are less effective. The condition can be caused by tensioned breathing for long periods, but also by other diseases, like asthma or inhalation of dust and other harmful particles.

3.Asthma. The bronchia and bronchioles' walls contain muscle bands. In the case of asthma, these muscles contract and narrow the breathing conducts. This turns the respiration difficult, being heard like rattling, but, unlike in bronchitis, the attacks are episodic, with periods of normal respiration.

Most asthma attacks are caused by allergies (exaggerated reactions of the body to harmless chemicals). The triggers can be from small mites and dust particles to animal hairs and pollen. Other factors can be some aliments, like eggs and diary products, food preservatives or food colorants. Bronchodilator drugs control asthma attacks.

4.Pneumonia affects especially diseased persons, children, and elders, being one of the leading causes of human deaths worldwide. Nowadays, antibiotics can fight bacteria-caused pneumonias.

The term "pneumonia" points to several types of painful inflammations of the profound parts of the lungs. They can be caused by the inhalation of toxic vapors or irritating liquids. The symptoms include coughing, fever, sweating, difficult breathing, blood traces in the phlegm and chest pain.

Infection and inflammation of the both lungs is called double pneumonia. Bronchopneumonia involves the inflammation of the breathing ways, too. Lobar pneumonia occurs when the infection is localized in one of the lungs' segments (lobes), which are 3 in the right lung and 2 in the left lung.

5.Lung cancer is a disease with various forms. The main cause is smoking. The tumors impede breathing and they can spread to other parts of the body, too. 20% of deaths in the US are smoking-related, lung cancer prevailing. Lung cancer is the main type of deadly cancer in men, and the second in women, after breast cancer.

Second-hand smoke is the culprit for 228,000 deaths amongst Americans in an interval of 5 years. Annually, second-hand smoke (environmental tobacco smoke) kills of lung cancer 3,000 people in US.

After years of smoking, the normally pink lungs turn gray.

6."The dust diseases" are rarer today. They are professional diseases, found in people breathing specific fine particles at the workplace.

Miners would experience the coal dust disease, while workers in quarries get a form of pneumoconiose, called silicosis. Textile workers would inhale small particles of fibers. In time, the particles led to the appearance of irritated, inflamed areas in the lungs, that turned ineffective. Some types of asbestos cause lung cancer.

In such factories, the air must be filtered and the workers need to wear special equipments and protection masks.

7.Lungs' movements are lubricated by their double wrapping, the pleural membrane. Between its sheets, there is a small amount of oily liquid. If the pleura is inflamed or infected, its normal slipping movements is impeded, appearing a friction between the two sheets. The breathing turns difficult and painful, and the resulting condition is called pleurisy.

8.The lungs can also share conditions like abscesses or edema (liquid accumulation) with other organs.