Cassondra Bailey

ENG204

Professor Hozey

10/21/2020

Smoking

Only a handful of things have had a huge impact on the health of the entire

world. Things like plagues, developments in food safety, and scientific breakthroughs

are some examples of these things. Another example is smoking. Smoking has greatly

impacted the overall health of the entire world, between first and secondhand smoke. A

review of scholarly literature on the topic of smoking reveals these common themes:

smoking can greatly increase risk of several different health diseases, increase anxiety

and cause depression, and put children in the household at higher risk for various

health issues.

Smoking can greatly increase risk of several different health diseases. Barry

Oches, Lesli Johnson, Regina Warfel, and Jennifer Collins made a presentation about

the effects of smoking called Supporting Smoke Free Families in Southeastern Ohio. In

this presentation, there is a flow chart explaining all the different improvements in your

body that are made over time once someone quit smoking. Things that are listed are all

positive: blood pressure and heart rate return to normal, O2 level returns to normal,

nicotine and CO levels reduce by half, CO is eliminated from the body, lungs begin to

eliminate mucus and debris, nicotine is eliminated from the body, taste and smell

improve, breathing is easier, bronchial tubes relax, energy levels increase, circulation
improves, lung function increases by up to 10%, breathing problems reduced, heart

attack risk is cut in half, lung cancer risk is cut in half, and, eventually, heart attack risk

becomes the same as for someone who has never smoked. 1 These are all different

kinds of health benefits that are produced when someone quits smoking, and this is just

for themselves, let alone the rest of their household, that has now been removed from

the secondhand smoke in the air. In an advisory by the UCSF World Health

Organization called Advisory note: Waterpipe tobacco smoking: health effects, research

needs and recommended actions for regulators (2nd edition), they explain that,

“Numerous carcinogens and toxicants have been identified, such as tobacco-specific

nitrosamines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) (e.g. benzo[a]pyrene,

anthracene), volatile aldehydes (e.g. formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein), benzene,

nitric oxide and heavy metals (arsenic, chromium, lead)." 2 Later in the article the

dangers of this are explained, "Some of these chemicals are classified by the

International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as human carcinogens." This is

specifically waterpipe smoking, which is a very common form of smoking. This means

that, a lot of the time, when humans are exposed to these chemicals, they develop

cancer. This can be many kinds of cancer, but, because these chemicals are typically

ingested in through the lungs, they are the first organ exposed to these harmful

chemicals. Because of this, lung cancer is a very common result of waterpipe smoking.

1
Barry Oches et al., Supporting Smoke Free Families in Southeastern Ohio, Ohio
Partners for Smoke Free Families, 2008, http://www.smokefreeseohio.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/05/SmokeFreeFamiliesProjectOverview.pdf.
2
UCSF World Health Organization, Advisory note: Waterpipe tobacco smoking:
health effects, research needs and recommended actions for regulators (2nd edition),
World Health Organization, (2015),
https://escholarship.org/content/qt9mn3k2fq/qt9mn3k2fq.pdf.
 Smoking can increase anxiety and cause depression. In the presentation by

Oches, et al., it is explained that 72 hours after a person quits smoking, energy levels

increase.3 This increased energy level helps to reduce stress because it allows one to

get more things done in the same span of time. If one gets more done throughout the

day, they will not be as stressed, because more things will have been checked off their

to-do list. Holly E. R. Morrell and Lee M. Cohen wrote an article named “Cigarette

Smoking, Anxiety, and Depression.” In this article, Morrell and Cohen talk about the

relationship between both smoking and anxiety and smoking and depression. They

explain that, especially during withdrawal when trying to quit smoking, anxiety levels can

skyrocket. The body is panicking because it is being stripped of something that it has

been reliant on for an extended period. It is now addicted to nicotine, and this sudden

cutoff of supply causes your body to go into a state of hyper-anxiety. Even still, they say

that depression is the more intense result, "Evidence regarding the comorbidity between

smoking and MDD [Major Depressive Disorder] is generally stronger and more

consistent than the evidence regarding the comorbidity between smoking and anxiety." 4

Depression is present even before the withdrawal occurs. They state that many current

smokers are depressed, "Breslau et al. (1991) found that 39% of young adult smokers

with moderate levels of nicotine dependence qualified for a diagnosis of comorbid MDD,

as compared to 19.2% of mildly dependent smokers and 10.1% of non-dependent

smokers."5 In the advisory note by the World Health Organization, it is stated that,

3
Barry Oches, et al.
4
Holley E. R. Morrell and Lee M. Cohen.
5
Ibid.
"Waterpipe smoking also appears to impair lung function and exercise capacity and to

elicit changes in inflammation biomarkers." 6 It has been proven several times that

exercise is good for physical, mental, and emotional health. Without such a capacity to

exercise, it takes away an opportunity to boost one’s mood. Not all impacts of smoking

are 100% direct. There are many indirect impacts of smoking that cannot quite be put

into statistics.

Smoking puts children in the household at higher risk for various health issues. In

Barry Oches, Lesli Johnson, Regina Warfel, and Jennifer Collins’ presentation, they

spend a lot of time talking about the effect that secondhand smoke has on children in all

different phases of life. If a parent is smoking in a home, it increases the child's chance

of developing problems such as SIDs Bronchiolitis, Meningitis, asthma, ear infections,

and fire related injuries. If the parental smoking continues into adolescence, then the

probability of the teenager beginning to smoke themselves is much higher than that in a

home where there is no smoking. Eventually, this carries over to adulthood where it will

develop into cancer, cardiovascular disease, and COPD. If the daughter decides to

become pregnant and is still smoking during the pregnancy, then there may be issues of

low birth weight, neurological problems, and even the possibility of a stillbirth. 7 In the

advisory note by the World Health Organization, they explain that, "Second-hand smoke

emitted directly from waterpipes into the surrounding atmosphere also contains

toxicants, as shown in controlled laboratory test chambers and by measurement of

airborne particulate matter in settings where waterpipes are used." 8 This secondhand
6
UCSF World Health Organization.
7
Barry Oches, et al.
8
UCSF World Health Organization.
danger is present to the children in the home. The dangers of airborne diseases are

immense, putting several children in grave danger of contracting diseases from one’s

actions.

Overall, it has been proven time and time again that smoking is unhealthy in

many different forms. There are many ways to quit, and it is always the best option to

quit something that is known to be unhealthy for someone and their community.
 Works Cited

Morrell, Holly E. R., and Lee M. Cohen. Cigarette Smoking, Anxiety, and Depression.
Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, December 2006.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Holly_Morrell/publication/226132928_Cigare
tte_Smoking_Anxiety_and_Depression/links/0f31753cd41859c901000000/Cigare
tte-Smoking-Anxiety-and-Depression.pdf.

Oches, Barry, Lesli Johnson, Regina Warfel, and Jennifer Collins. Supporting Smoke
Free Families in Southeastern Ohio. Ohio Partners for Smoke Free Families,
2008. http://www.smokefreeseohio.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/05/SmokeFreeFamiliesProjectOverview.pdf.

UCSF World Health Organization. Advisory note: Waterpipe tobacco smoking: health
effects, research needs and recommended actions for regulators (2nd edition).
World Health Organization, 2015.
https://escholarship.org/content/qt9mn3k2fq/qt9mn3k2fq.pdf.