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Samantha Hacker

ENG 2101

Prof. Sobocinski

18 March 2022

Why does smoking have such an effect on one's health?

Smoking has been part of history since the 1500s when it first began making its way

around the world. Since then smoking has been cultivated all over the centuries with no one

knowing the deadly effects that were taking place. Over the years the viewpoint on smoking has

been seen in many different ways. Some see smoking as a stress reliever, others as a harmful

drug. As time goes by, more research on nicotine and carcinogens has taken place. Through this

research new harmful effects have been found, such as difficulty breathing or causing cancer.

Even going as far as changing and damaging the DNA in our bodies. This asks the question, why

does smoking have such an effect on health? Why does it matter?

Starting around the early 15th and 16th centuries, the tobacco plant was found and used

by the native Americans. Usually, it was used for practice in spiritual and medicinal practices.

For example, tobacco was used as a cure for toothaches and earaches by the Iroquois(“A social

and cultural history of smoking”). Modern-day research would suggest that smoking would make

the health situation worse. Smoking was also used in many rituals and agreements. These

ceremonies would include initiation ceremonies as well as fertility ceremonies. Most commonly

known, a ceremonial pipe would be passed around to make agreements. Rather than what most

people in common times would use smoking as a form of stress relief.

Carcinogens have many terrible effects that occur the longer people smoke. This includes

damaging DNA. Depending on how long someone was smoking depends on the damage to their

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DNA. Marks, almost like scars, occur creating methylation, which alters the gene and can

change how it functions. These scars can create cancer and lung damage as well as harm future

generations. A team of researchers at Harvard medical school conducted a study. They took over

1600 blood samples and surveyed how long the same people were smoking. Their findings found

that many genes had been affected by smoking. The same genes were linked to heart and lung

disease (“Smoking Permanently Damages Your DNA, Study Finds”). Smoking can create many

more problems that can be solved, so much it can permanently affect the smoker and their future

generation.

Not only smoking can affect your DNA, but it can also have very unfortunate damaging

effects on the brain. The more someone might smoke the worse the health effects on the brain

will be. Some effects may be loss of attention or having trouble paying attention, understanding

things faster, and understanding the space of objects (“Opposite effects of smoking and nicotine

intake on cognition”). A study conducted by The Institute Of Psychiatric Research proved many

of these effects. Starting out with bringing in healthy non-smokers and people who liked to

smoke heavily. Both groups were given simple cognitive tasks to do. One of the tests was called

the Stroop test, where the color of the word would be different than the word color. The

nonsmokers showed faster growth and time rather than the heavy smokers who had a slower time

in completing the test (“Opposite effects of smoking and nicotine intake on cognition”) This was

one of many tests performed on the people, showing that smoking slows down the brain to the

point of things being harder to complete faster.

Smoking is also linked to many types of cancer and diseases. These are known to be

more deadly and could show up without warning. One of the worst types of cancer is Lung

disease, which is also known to be caused by cancer. This occurs by the carcinogens changing

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the cells in the lungs(“lung.org”). This eventually will cause many health problems, including

cancer. Although, if the person decided to stop smoking there's a chance the cells will regenerate

and become healthy again. With lung cancer being the most dangerous effect of smoking it has

affected more people than it should have. According to The American Lung Association “About

every two and a half minutes, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with lung cancer, and every day,

lung cancer takes the lives of more than 382 of our friends, neighbors and loved ones.” Even

though smoking may end stress, it might also end the lives of many people who smoke.

Even though some may believe the effects of smoking may seem to only affect places in

the United States, that is not the case. Smoking affects people all over the world, even in places

we do not think about. “The 2013 World Health Assembly called on governments to reduce the

prevalence of smoking by about a third by 2025 which would avoid more than 200 million

deaths from tobacco during the remainder of the century.”(“Global Effects of Smoking, of

Quitting, and of Taxing Tobacco”) Even though there have been many lives lost to smoking

there are solutions to the problem. For example, to get more people to stop smoking,

governments can raise taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products. “It concluded that a 50%

increase in inflation-adjusted tobacco prices reduces consumption by about 20% in both high-

income countries and low- and middle-income countries” (“Prabhat Jha”) This will cause fewer

people to buy them and more people will be forced to quit smoking because of the price.

In conclusion, smoking has many awful side effects that do not make it worth the price.

Before research was done unfortunately many people did not know about the dangerous effects.

Now more than ever there's more to know that can help against the effects of smoking. These

effects range from damaging parts of your brain to getting lung cancer. With many more studies

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being done the more that is known about smoking. With this, the health of many people will get

better the fewer smoking products are produced.

Works Cited

Almeida, Natalia L., et al. “Opposite Effects of Smoking and Nicotine Intake on Cognition.”

Psychiatry Research, vol. 293, 2020, p. 113357., doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113357.

“American Lung Association.” American Lung Association | American Lung Association,

lung.org/.

Jha, Prabhat, et al. “Global Effects of Smoking, of Quitting, and of Taxing Tobacco: NEJM.”

New England Journal of Medicine, 10 Mar. 1970,

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmra1308383.

“Smoking Permanently Damages Your DNA, Study Finds.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal

News Group, 21 Sept. 2016, www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/smoking-

permanently-scars-your-dna-study-finds-n651471.

“The Age of the Cigarette.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.,

www.britannica.com/topic/smoking-tobacco/The-age-of-the-cigarette.