Tobacco – Indeed you are clear that smoking causes significant damage to internal organs, such as the lungs or the heart, among others. Still, it is also essential to highlight the harmful effects of smoking on the skin, bone system, or mouth, widely documented in various scientific studies.
Doctors defined the smoker’s face from research he published in the Medical Journal. The reports that most smokers with more than ten years of use can identify only by facial examination. Thus, the smoker’s face has the following characteristics:
- Marked wrinkles, mainly caused by the contraction of the lips when smoking and the act of squinting to avoid smoke.
- Gaunt facial appearance with a prominence of bones.
- The greyish appearance of the skin.
- Purple spots.
And is that tobacco smoke negatively affects the skin in two ways. Air polluted with smoke dries the skin, and smoking reduces the amount of blood flow that reaches it, depriving it of oxygen. And other essential nutrients and causing dehydration on the skin surface. The skin of women is more affected by tobacco than that of men due to its delicacy. Doctors state that “there are studies that suggest that beyond 39 years of age. Women would more likely to have wrinkles as a result of smoking than men”.
Nicotine raises the levels of vasopressin, a hormone that stimulates the contraction of muscle fibers, increases blood pressure and decreases estrogens in women, which favors the appearance of dryness and skin atrophy, in addition to the possibility of the formation of hair. Likewise, it reduces the absorption of vitamin A, alters collagen and elastin.
But in addition to the face, smokers also have other visible effects such as yellowish pigmentation around the fingers, hands, teeth, and even the hair can acquire that yellowish tone.
Healing Problems
It is also essential to highlight the disorders caused by tobacco in wound healing. That was seen for the first time in the 1970s. Later, in studies of patients who underwent cosmetic operations, it did show that women who continued to smoke after surgery had slower and worse healing since smoke affects the oxygenation of the tissues, decreasing circulation and intoxicating the blood.
In short, many of the problems caused by tobacco tend to manifest themselves on an aesthetic level that smokers generally do not consider. Without forgetting that the damages caused at the dermatological level are essential. And, in addition, they can become irreversible in the case of the appearance and development of different pathologies, such as other types of cancer.
How does tobacco affect Allergy Sufferers?
Perhaps you have never considered it, but there is a direct relationship between allergies and tobacco. And it is that although the use of antihistamines, antiallergics, and preventive vaccines to alleviate the effects of allergens is known, we could say that there is another less known and cheaper formula that helps many people to overcome these discomforts: stop smoking.
Nasal congestion, red eyes, conjunctivitis, sneezing. To prevent these manifestations from being triggered or at least try to mitigate their impact. The patient must adopt specific measures. Tobacco smoke contains 4,700 chemical substances that increase the ease of the allergen to penetrate the body, achieving a double impact on the respiratory tract. “Tobacco smoke is a clear irritant of the respiratory mucosa,” explains the specialist. Who adds that it also causes “greater exposure of the mucosa to allergens. By reducing its ability to eliminate mucus that serves as an air purifier that we breathe”.
What about Passive Smokers?
“The allergic person may notice that his symptoms of eye irritation, nasal congestion or sneezing, and even asthma worsen with indirect exposure to tobacco smoke.” And also, people with allergies who have indirect exposure to tobacco smoke will worsen the symptoms (although it is not as marked as the first ones). There may also be more excellent resistance to treatment with antihistamines.
In addition, the doctor points out, “there are studies that clearly show that the exposure of babies. And also, young children to tobacco smoke inside the house, and even that babies born to smoking mothers. Carry a higher risk of suffering respiratory problems throughout its development, including asthma.”
Better late than never
From all this, it follows that the most brilliant measure for allergy sufferers would be to quit smoking, preferably in the weeks before the arrival of spring. Still, it is never too late to take this step, and it encourages doing so once this season has started.
In this sense, remember that once the decision to overcome addiction has prepared, only a tiny percentage of people manage to quit smoking on their own. “The vast majority will need professional guidance. The use of medications that reduce the effects of nicotine addiction when it is withdrawn. And psychological and social support and reinforcement during the cessation process and even once consumption is abandoned. For this, the recommendation is that these people seek professional help”, advises the expert.
Thanks to the patient’s support in these units, the chances of quitting smoking significantly increased. If, in addition, visits to the doctor complement with adequate pharmacological therapy. Some studies show that 1 in 16 premature deaths from cardiovascular disease among smokers can prevent.
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