The Most Harmful Chemicals In Cigarettes

Friday, August 9, 2013, 21:07 [IST]

Many smokers have a habit of saying that they want their ‘nicotine drags'. The ironic part about this phrase is that is highly misinformed. Most smokers hardly know that they are smoking up much more than just tobacco. There are many more harmful chemicals in cigarettes. Nicotine is just an eye-wash for the hundreds other fatal chemicals present in cigarettes.

We all know that the effects of smoking are not very healthy. And yet, every year there is an increase in the number of smokers. It seems that just nicotine is not enough inspiration for most smokers to quit. To fully understand the disastrous effects of smoking, they need to know about all the chemicals in cigarette.

Apart from tobacco, a cigarette is packed with many other ingredients. Most of these chemicals are otherwise considered as poisonous. For example, did you know that cigarettes contain formaldehyde? The most common use of formaldehyde otherwise is to preserve dead bodies. On an average, each cigarette contains more than 3000 harmful chemicals that are enough to kill you 5 times over.

Here is a headcount of all the poisonous chemicals present in cigarettes.

Nicotine

Nicotine is present in very high amounts in cigarettes. It comes from the tobacco itself. Nicotine causes cancer and destroys the makeup of your DNA.

Benzene

Benzene is a petrochemical that is used to dry clean your clothes. And it is also a known carcinogen that has the capacity to cause blood cancer.

Arsenic

Arsenic is a metal that can easily poison your blood. In fact many factory workers die of arsenic poisoning. Accumulation of arsenic in the body damages the capacity of cells to renew themselves.

Tar

Don't be shocked; this is the same tar that is used as pitch on the roads. This tar is produced when cigarette is burned. It yellows your teeth and blackens your lungs.

Formaldehyde

Have you ever got that terribly numbing smell in hospitals? It is the smell of the morgues because formaldehyde is a chemical used to preserve dead bodies. The same formaldehyde is present in the cigarettes you smoke.

Acetone

Acetone is a chemical that most women are familiar with. It is the main constituent of nail polish removers. Cigarettes contain acetone too. Imagine was this corroding chemical can do to the insides of your wind pipe and lungs!

Carbon Monoxide

Roughly five percent of your cigarette smoke is carbon monoxide. This poisonous gas sticks to you RBCs and reduces the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood. As a result, your lungs get damaged and you also develop coronary diseases.

Ammonia

The smell of ammonia is most reminiscent of toilet cleaners. This foul smelling chemical that makes you dizzy helps to makes cigarette smoking so addictive.

Cadmium

Cadmium is one of the metals that is used to make batteries. And this same chemical gets deposited on the lining of your kidneys and damages them.

Nitrogen Oxide

Nitrogen oxide is an air pollutant let out by factories and automobiles. This poisonous gas causes inflammation of the lungs and is responsible for making most smokers breathe with effort.

Chromium

Chromium is a metal that obviously causes cancer. But the worst part is that chromium sticks to your DNA and damages it completely.

Naphthalene

We all know that naphthalene balls that are used to keep pests away from clothes are poisonous. And we also take great care while handling them. But when it comes to cigarette smoke, we are casual. Naphthalene is also a chemical present in cigarettes.

Hydrogen Cyanide

We all know that cyanide is the fastest poison in the world. In combination of hydrogen, this chemical compound destroys the cilia of the bronchial tract and lungs. The delicate hair-like cilia usually help to drag out toxins in the air we breathe.