Make no mistake about it: deciding to quit smoking combustible cigarettes is a BIG decision!
While it’s a pretty easy choice to make at the surface level, following through with it is not an easy task for everybody. For one thing, you’ll quickly realise that your body has become addicted to nicotine, which may cause some discomfort. Despite the challenges you will face when deciding to quit, a transition away from cigarettes IS possible and may be one of the best decisions you could ever make for your health.
What Makes Combustible Cigarettes So Harmful?
In many cities worldwide, there is often societal pressure to quit smoking tobacco. But, what makes combustible cigarettes so harmful? And why this shift from embracing combustible cigarettes to rejecting them?
Although tobacco was linked to lung cancer back in the 1920s, it was a series of medical reports in the 1950s and 1960s that confirmed tobacco was the cause of major illnesses. [1] Here are some reasons why cigarettes are considered harmful:
• Nicotine: Combustible cigarettes contain nicotine, which is highly addictive. The nicotine molecules make their way to several receptors in our brain cells. One of these receptors is acetylcholine (which makes us more alert) and the other is dopamine (which gives us pleasure). After months of feeding your body nicotine, the body grows accustomed to elevated feelings of pleasure and feeling more alert. When nicotine is withdrawn, your body feels starved. [2] This is one of the key reasons smokers find it challenging to quit.
• Chemicals That Cause Cancer: When a combustible cigarette burns, it releases over 5,000 chemicals. Roughly 70 of those chemicals cause cancer. Some of these cancer-causing chemicals include cadmium, arsenic, and chromium. Even “light” or “low-tar” combustible cigarettes contain many of these chemicals. [3]
• Lung Disease: The primary cause of lung cancer is smoking. Combustible cigarettes also cause chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). [4]
• Damage to Your Respiratory System: Besides causing lung cancer, inhaling cigarette smoke can inflame and irritate your airways. [5] This can weaken your respiratory system and make you vulnerable to respiratory infections.
• Cardiovascular Problems: The chemicals that are released when you smoke combustible cigarettes can result in plaque buildup in your arteries. This can increase the risk of having a heart attack or heart disease.
• More Susceptible to Other Cancers: The harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke can also increase your risk of getting other cancers, such as throat, oesophageal, and mouth cancer. [5]
• Problems With Fertility: When women smoke combustible cigarettes, those harmful chemicals pass straight into the baby’s system. This can cause premature birth, complications during pregnancy, low birth weight, and even miscarriage. Men, too, can suffer from fertility issues, such as damaged sperm. [5]
• Damage to Your Teeth: Over time, smoking combustible cigarettes will stain your teeth and increase the risk of tooth decay. You will also be more susceptible to gum disease.
• Premature Aging: Smoking ages the skin faster, causing wrinkles around the eyes and the mouth. It also gives you a grey, dull complexion. [5]
• Second-hand smoke: Unfortunately, combustible cigarette smoke also harms those who are exposed to second-hand smoke. As the smoke contains harmful chemicals, anyone who breathes it in will face the same risks of getting respiratory system damage and lung cancer.
The Benefits of Quitting Tobacco Cigarettes
Smoking combustible cigarettes is harmful not just to you but to those around you. Here are some benefits of quitting tobacco cigarettes:
• Healthier Lungs: When you quit smoking combustible cigarettes, you’ll significantly reduce your risk of getting lung cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
• Reduce Your Risk of Cancer: Since smoking increases your risk of getting a variety of cancers, such as throat, mouth, and esophageal cancer, you’ll reduce your risk of getting these cancers over time.
• Improved Cardiovascular Health: As smoking releases a lot of harmful chemicals that can result in plaque buildup in your arteries, quitting means you’ll lower your chances of getting heart disease or suffering from a stroke.
• Healthier Respiratory System: Once you quit smoking combustible cigarettes, you’ll notice an improvement in your airways. You’ll breathe better and will notice that any coughing or wheezing you suffered from has subsided.
• Increased Life Expectancy: On average, smoking traditional cigarettes reduces your life expectancy by about 10 years. [5] The sooner you quit smoking traditional cigarettes, the greater health benefits you’ll enjoy and the longer you will live.
• Improved Fertility: Studies have shown that quitting smoking traditional cigarettes improves both female and male fertility. By quitting, you will increase your chances of having a healthy pregnancy (if you’re a woman) and having higher-quality sperm (if you’re a man).
• Improved Sense of Smell and Taste: Smoking dulls the taste buds, [6] which can reduce your sense of taste and smell. After you have quit smoking for a bit, your taste buds will improve and you will notice that you can smell and taste better.
• More Savings: By decreasing your reliance on traditional cigarettes, you’ll save more. This is especially true if you have been smoking a pack a day or more.
• Less Exposure to Second-hand Smoke: When you smoke combustible cigarettes, you jeopardise the health of those around you. By quitting, you are improving the health of your family and friends.
Using Tobacco Vapes to Quit Smoking Cigarettes
Once you’ve decided to quit smoking combustible cigarettes, you may be wondering if there is an alternative to just quitting cold turkey. There is.
Electronic cigarettes or vapes are a great way to transition away from combustible cigarettes. There is no tobacco, for one, and you will be eliminating many of the roughly 5,000 harmful chemicals you’re exposed to with traditional cigarettes.
However, if you still crave the taste and smell of tobacco, you can get tobacco flavored vape. It’s the best vape flavor for cigarette smokers because it smells and tastes very much like traditional cigarettes.
When you choose to vape, you can better control the nicotine levels in your e-cigarettes or vape devices. This means you can gradually lower your nicotine intake, allowing you to wean yourself off your nicotine addiction.
Another important reason to transition to vaping is that vapes have fewer harmful chemicals than combustible cigarettes! Since you’re being exposed to less toxic chemicals, there will be less harm done to your respiratory system.
Using a tobacco vape also lets you mimic the act of smoking traditional cigarettes. You hold the vape and puff on it in the same way you would a combustible cigarette. This can make it easier – psychologically – to transition away from smoking.
Tobacco vapes don’t produce smoke; instead, they produce vapor, which is less harmful to those around you than second-hand smoke.
Finally, besides a tobacco flavour, you can try a variety of other flavours. This experimentation may make vaping more fun and can make it easier to transition away from combustible cigarettes.
Conclusion
Quitting traditional cigarettes isn’t easy, this is not groundbreaking news. However – once you have decided to quit – you may find that using a tobacco flavored vape is a fantastic alternative and can make the transition away from cigarettes that much easier – especially for those who have been long time smokers.
References:
[1] https://www.cancercouncil.com.au/news/a-brief-history-of-smoking/
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/24/why-is-nicotine-addictive-google
[4] https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chronic-obstructive-pulmonary-disease-copd/causes/
[5] https://www.bupa.co.uk/health-information/lungs-breathing/effects-of-smoking
[6] https://fisd.oxfordshire.gov.uk/kb5/oxfordshire/directory/advice.page?id=e1ZIEwm4tNo