Smoking's Morbid "Charm"

A few years ago I wrote an article on Smoking, "Douse that Killer Puff", that can be read from the following link: http://sohelkarim.blogspot.com/2003/06/douse-that-killer-puff-by-mahbubul_03.html

So much have been said about the deadly consequences of smoking that any more repeating of same topic may be seen as tedious cliche, losing all its initial power changing a smoker's heart. However, seeing loved ones, dear friends and family members puffing away logic and sensibilities in the face of rock solid scientific evidences on smoking's sure killer eventuality, makes me compel to utter same "cliche" a thousand times more in louder voice I can summon.

I am very much aware of life's other vicious unhealthy habits, like binging on sweets, alcohol, red meats, trans fats, etc., and they do have similar if not more harmful effects on someone's precious life, but these "truths" do not provide any consolation to anyone visiting a relative or a dying friend who is perishing from cancer or heart disease. Time and time again, studies after respectable studies have shown, indisputably, what smoking can do, bringing destruction on cellular level. Dr. Michael F. Rozien and Mehmet C. Oz, has a very succinct description on how smoking can contribute to cancer: "More than 95 percent of people with lung cancer have smoked or been exposed to heavy doses of second hand smoke, radon or asbestos. What happens is, normal cells are repetitively damaged by a toxin (in this case, hydrocarbons from the tobacco leaf that are formed with or without burning), so your lungs make new cells to repair and replace the damaged ones. The faster they need to work to replace and repair, the higher the likelihood that one of those typographical errors of duplication will take place -- turning a normal cell into a bad one." (You: The Owner's Manual, Page 332)

Smoking is directly related to heart disease, including coronary and peripheral heart disease (click here for reference), since, "When it acts with other factors, it greatly increases risk. Smoking increases blood pressure, decreases exercise tolerance and increases the tendency for blood to clot. Smoking also increases the risk of recurrent coronary heart disease after bypass surgery."

I have a very personal connection with smoking's deathly sphere. I had seen my own father developing severe heart disease in his very early age that had led to his eventual death from double swords: incurable cancer and heart failure. While visiting him in his dimly lit hospital room, my father was given heavy doses of Morphine to keep the spreading cancer pain at a bay, I knew that he wasn't given any chance of survival due to his advanced heart disease that made the doctor pronounced him a terminal patient, providing him no chemotherapy or any forms of treatment. Only painkiller like Morphine and other similar categories drugs were given to provide him "comfortable death". He was a poet whose dreams were woven into melancholic lyrics that turned into musical tunes by musicians. In his last days, I had seen his watery eyes inside heavy eye-lids, still wanted to cling to life, but his fate was already sealed by smoking's deathly grip a long time ago.

If you are one of the readers who still couldn't get away from smoking's morbid "charm", I sincerely recommend you to do your own research, starting from the following link:
Questions About Smoking, Tobacco, and Health

Regards,
Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)

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