Cancer Articles (Dr. S.N White)

Are cigars safer than cigarettes? Cigar smoking and smokeless tobacco have been heavily promoted and have increased in use in recent years. Cigar smokers, as well as pipe smokers, differ from cigarette smokers in that they usually do not inhale. It is true that cigar and pipe smoking carries a lower risk of heart disease than cigarette smoking. However, former cigarette smokers who are used to inhaling may inhale when they switch to cigars, even though cigar and pipe smoke is more irritating to the lungs than cigarette smoke. Those cigar smokers who do inhale actually have higher rates of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases than cigarette smokers; and those who don’t inhale each puff still passively inhale some of their own secondhand smoke. Whether one inhales or not, the use of cigars and chewing tobacco carries an increased risk of cancers of the mouth and throat, as does inhaling secondhand cigar smoke. Smokeless tobacco, such as chewing tobacco or snuff, provides a dose o...

I know smoking tobacco is bad for my lungs and health, but why is smoking bad for my heart?  ELEVATED HEART RATE AND BLOOD PRESSURE  There are two especially harmful substances inhaled while smoking. The first is nicotine, the addictive ingredient in cigarettes. When it enters the bloodstream it increases the heart rate, causing the heart to work harder and increasing the need for oxygen in all the cells of the body. Research suggests that nicotine contributes to arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats). Smokers’ risk of sudden cardiac death is about three times that of nonsmokers’. Nicotine is blamed for elevations in blood pressure while the cigarette is being smoked, which means that a moderate smoker might cause his or her blood vessels to constrict and relax at a rate twenty or so times higher than usual a day. Researchers don’t know exactly how this affects the body over time, but they suspect it is damaging. They do know that when people already have high blood pressure, ...

How does cigarette smoking damage the heart? Smoking greatly increases your risk of developing heart disease. Depending on the duration of tobacco use, those who smoke up to 25 cigarettes a day are almost twice as likely to develop heart disease as those who don’t smoke; those who smoke 25 to 34 cigarettes a day are about three times as likely; and those who smoke more than 35 cigarettes a day are four times as likely to develop heart disease as nonsmokers. There are many ways that smoking contributes to heart disease.