How Does Cigarette Smoking Cause Lung Cancer
Reasons people smoke involve personal choice as well as societal pressures. Smoking is habit forming because tobacco contains nicotine, a chemical that is addictive to users. But as we all know, cigarette smoking is nothing but be harmful to our health. You see, cigarette smoking is the number one cause of death in the United States today and it is directly responsible for 87% of cases of lung cancer each year.
What makes cigarette smoking cause cancer are ingredients known as carcinogens. Carcinogen literally means “cancer-causing.” Cigarettes also contain nicotine, but this is not what causes cancer. Nicotine is the substance in cigarettes that one becomes addicted to. The other cigarette ingredients are what make it deadly. Tar is one of the many carcinogenic substances found in cigarettes. Tar contains over 4,000 chemicals. Over 60 of those chemicals are known carcinogens, all of which are deadly.
When a cigarette is lit, all the chemicals in it react with one another in such a way that alters the way a healthy cell behaves. Healthy cells grow, make new cells and then die. Cells grow faster during childhood, but this process slows down by the time we reach adulthood. By then, most cells in the body are made only to take the place of the ones that die. However, carcinogens affect a cell’s DNA, causing damage that causes the cells to behave differently. The damaged DNA in cancer cells is not fixed and causes cells to grow and make new cells in a way that is not orderly and healthy, but out of control. The damaged cells make new damaged and unhealthy cells that can spread throughout the body causing death and disease.
In order to decrease risk of getting lung cancer and other cancers, people should learn to quit smoking onther than continuing their dangerous actions.
