How does smoking cigarettes affect the body?
When you inhale tobacco smoke, you are inhaling organic compounds that are harmful to your body. Of the more than two thousand different compounds identified in tobacco smoke, the three most dangerous are tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide. Tar; a thick, sticky residue of hydrocarbons, coats the lungs. Nicotine, a toxic alkaloid, is the addictive ingredient in tobacco; it is absorbed into the bloodstream from the lungs and affects the central nervous system. Carbon monoxide enters the bloodstream, where it reduces the ability of the red blood cells to carry oxygen to body tissues. Many other gases and particulates released in cigarette smoke are both irritants and carcinogens. Among them are ammonia, acetaldehyde, acetone, benzene, toluene, phenol, cresol, naphthalenes, benzopyrene, and nitrosamine. (Most of these compounds are also found in marijuana smoke.) Smoke from cigarettes coats the mouth, throat, and lungs with these carcinogenic substances. When they are absorbed into the blo
