Chapter 10 - Legal Drugs ________________________________________
Tobacco _________________________________________
Most people start smoking because of social-psychological reasons, but continue to smoke because of physical addiction or habituation and/or mental dependence. You may be surprised to know that most heavy smokers acquired the habit before the age of 20 and relatively few acquired the habit after the age of 30. Another interesting fact is that more than 50 percent of heavy smokers are under the age of 25. Some studies have shown that as much as 41 percent of the heavy smoking males and 39 percent of the females are of high school age. An even more disturbing trend is the fact that the number of women who now smoke is quickly approaching the number of men. According to the latest Surgeon General’s report, the number of females between the ages of 14 and 18 who smoke has increased over one thousand percent since 1978. There is a prolific amount of research that clearly shows that smoking contributes generously to the national morbidity and mortality rates. In simpler terms, smoking can kill you. For instance, if you are a white female, longevity statistics report that you are likely to live to be 76 years of age. However, if you smoke at least 20 cigarettes a day, you can subtract 10 years from this figure. If you smoke and take birth control pills, you can subtract another five years from your life since these two drugs are synergistic to each other. Briefly, if you smoke and take birth control pills, you may only live to the age of 61. Now, if you are a Caucasian male, longevity statistics say you will live to the age of 72. Then again, if you smoke a pack a day, you can decrease your longevity by nine years. And if you use birth control pills...well, you have more problems than just smoking. If you are a black female, longevity statistics report that you are likely to live to be 70 years of age. Conversely, if you smoke at least 20 cigarettes a day, you can subtract 12 years from this figure. If you smoke and take birth control pills, you can subtract another five years from your life. In other words, if you smoke and take birth control pills, you may only live to the age of 53. Is that scary or what? Well, not as scary as if you were a black male. Longevity statistics indicate that if you are a black male, you will live to be 65 years of age. Smoke a pack a day and you may be dead before you reach 50 years of age. That is too young for anyone to die. You might be wondering why there is such a discrepancy between the life expectancy of whites and blacks. That’s easy, white folks don’t do anything. No! I’m just kidding. It is probably because white people get much better medical care during their lives. That is changing though, and the sooner, the better. If smoking doesn’t kill you, it can sure make you wish you were dead. Smoking clearly posses substantial risks to health. For example, smoking predisposes an individual to such medical disorders as heart disease, respiratory disease, high blood pressure, peptic ulcers, cancer and blood disorders. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. It has been scientifically estimated that if everyone were to quit smoking, there would be 33 percent fewer cases of coronary heart disease and 70 percent fewer cases of cancer. On a more encouraging note, more than 55 percent of the smokers older than the age of 50 have kicked the habit. In brief, younger people are taking up the habit at a greater rate while older folks are dropping it at an even greater rate.
Chapter 10 - Legal Drugs ________________________________________
- Cigarettes Cigarette smoke is a heterogeneous aerosol composed of a mixture of hot air and gases that suspend small particles known as tar. Epidemiological studies have identified more than 4000 substances in cigarette smoke. Many of these substances contain carcinogenic (cancer causing) and mutogenic (produces mutation) substances. One of these substances is Benzopyrene, which is one of the most carcinogenic substances known to man. The particle matter of cigarettes also contains chemicals called phenols, which are thought to activate and accelerate dormant cancer cell growth in the body. In other words, you can have encapsulated or benign cancer and these chemicals can activate that cancer and cause it to metastasize throughout the body. Interestingly, the only two substances that people talk about are tar and nicotine. Although these two substances are extremely dangerous, there are two other chemicals in cigarettes that no one discusses, but they are every bit as dangerous as the tar and nicotine. They are nitrogen oxide and hydrogen cyanide. We know you never heard of them. Well, you are about too…so get ready. Now, listen closely, this is really important. When you inhale nitrogen oxide, this gas immobilizes the cilia for a period of 40 to 60 minutes. In a word, the cilia become cataleptic…they just lie there in a type of paralyzed state. What happens once the cilia are knocked out? Any particles entering the bronchial tube are trapped by the mucous produced by the bronchial cells, but because the cilia are now ineffective in sweeping the particles upward, gravity will take over and force the mucous and particles towards the lungs. When this occurs, the accumulation of mucous in the lower part of the respiratory tract will trigger the cough reflex. Although the cough reflex is fairly good at clearing particles to the throat, it is not 100 percent efficient. Thus, a lot of mucous and particles do in fact reach the lungs. We know what you are thinking, “What about the white blood cells? Aren’t they super efficient in eliminating foreign particles?” You are exactly right, except for another small fact…that other chemical called hydrogen cyanide. Hydrogen cyanide does the same thing to the white blood cells that nitrogen oxide does to the cilia…it puts them into a lethargic state for a lengthy period of time. In a nutshell, these two gases render two of your defense mechanisms ineffective for an extended period of time. Let’s see what happens when that occurs.
- Tar This may surprise you, but tar is not a gas. Tar is simple shout resin…you know, sticky stuff. You get tar from burning tobacco. It’s the stuff that stains your teeth, your fingers, your clothes, your curtains, or anything else it comes in contact with. As previously mentioned, foreign particles such as tar are normally not problematic because the air passageways are constantly being cleansed by the body’s defense mechanisms. Remember, the nitrogen oxide and the hydrogen cyanide immobilize the cilia and the white blood cells for a considerable period of time. Therefore, the bronchial cells are unprotected against the irritating effects of cigarette tar. In essence, what happens is that when you inhale a cigarette, the tar starts collecting on the epithelial (lining) tissue of the bronchial cells. The tar then begins eating its way through the epithelial tissue causing inflammation of the tissue. The bronchial cells, in an effort to cool the inflammation will produce even more mucous than normal. Since the cilia cannot remove this excess mucous, gravity forces it downward into the bronchial tube. This accumulation of mucus and tar in the bronchial tube activates the cough reflex, which in turn produces a deep cough in an attempt to force the material back up into your mouth.
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The obvious question is, “Why is this happening?” Well, the logical answer is that unlike adults, most young people have not incorporated their vulnerability into their intrinsic value system. When you are young, you think you are indestructible. Let’s be real, kids will do anything…jump off bridges, play with fire, tease bulls…they can’t help themselves. They are suffering from temporary juvenile behavior insanity. Not surprisingly, as the years wear on, they come to realize that they are not indestructible and that they can be injured…that they indeed have limits. The same thing is true for the cigarette smoker. When a smoker is young, it is hard for him to envision that he can be hurt or die. The young person feels healthy and possesses an abundance of strength and energy. Yet, as the years pass, the smoker starts to experience the symptoms associated with smoking. Eventually, the person realizes that smoking can be hazardous to one’s health and that smoking can contribute to an early checkout time. Another point is that their peer groups and social settings more easily influence younger people than older people…again, temporary juvenile behavior insanity. This is an ∞ WELLNESS FOR LIFE ∞ important point because as we previously __________________________________________________________________ mentioned, most people begin smoking because of social-psychological factors. Smoking Advertisements. Also, there is considerable research Although smoking advertisement has been banned which indicates that role models from television, cigarette manufacturers still spend more than influence children more than they do 300 million dollars each year in an effort to influence smoking adults. For instance, numerous behavior. As you might expect, cigarette advertisements seldom, experimental studies have revealed that if ever, deal with the facts about smoking. Rather they are geared there is a greater than 50 percent chance towards presenting people who smoke cigarettes as confident, of smoking if your parents smoke. There sexy, and successful. Even more ludicrous are the ads that imply is also substantial evidence to show that an association between smoking and good health, a concept that children are influenced by people they is in direct contrast to the truth. How effective are these ads? Very effective! There is a hold in high esteem. If a child observes a linear relationship between capitol expenditures for professional athlete or movie star advertisement and cigarette consumption, meaning that the more smoking, there is a good chance that this money the tobacco companies dump into advertisement the more person’s behavior could influence the cigarettes they sell. child’s. As a person grows older, he Interestingly, studies have found that most smokers becomes more autonomous and is cannot distinguish one brand from the next. Thus, their choice is influenced less by role models. not a function of taste but rather how effectively the brand is Accordingly, it is easier for older marketed. individuals to quit smoking. This is not to suggest that it is an easy habit for an older person to break. Kicking the smoking habit is difficult for anyone. It’s just that from a social-psychological stand point, it may be easier for an older person to quit. Well, it doesn’t matter if you are old and feeble or young and foolish. We are going to help you out here. Once you read this chapter, if you smoke, you will definitely want to quit. If you don’t smoke, you will never want to start. That is a promise. So let’s get going.
- A Fantastic Voyage Through Your Lungs and Heart Hey, remember that stuff we told you about how the cardiovascular system works in the chapter on fitness? Well, you need to go back and read it again because it applies here too. It is on page 24 and it is called “A Fantastic Voyage Through You Lungs and Heart.” This time we really mean it because we ran out of Reader’s Digest versions. Don’t go a step further until you understand it perfectly. So go ahead now and read it, we will wait here for you. Get going…we are not going to wait all day. Okay, while you were away we’ve been sitting here for days (because you are either a damn slow reader or you didn’t read anything and just let us sit here waiting…nice!) racking our brains trying to figure out how we can explain to you in an interesting and informative manner how the cardiorespiratory system defends itself from foreign matter. On this particular subject though, we seemed to have writer’s block, which is a nice way of saying that we are intellectually constipated…nothing would come out. Then, one of us came up with this cute little story that explains everything the way we wanted to explain it. So we decided to let him tell you the story in his own words, while the rest of us take a much needed coffee break. So, without further ado we will turn this discussion over to him. We’ll get back with you later.
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Hi, my name is Judd. Obviously, I am not the one who is intellectually constipated. I won’t mention who is intellectually challenged…Dan, Damatia, Nilo, Jose…but I can explain this to you so even a mental dwarf can understand it. The only reason I say that is because Dan, Damatia, Nilo and Jose understood it when I told them the story. Don’t tell them I said that…let’s just keep that little bit of information between you and me. Anywho, when I was in college, my father would go to great pains to get me summer jobs that were absolutely horrifying. His idea was that once I experienced the backbreaking reality of common labor, I would appreciate my college education a lot more. He was certainly right about that! I mean, some of the jobs he got me would make picking cotton look like a white-collar job. One summer I’ll never forget is when he got me a job at the Lehigh Foundry in Easton, Pennsylvania. In case you don’t know what a foundry is, it’s the closest thing to hell on earth. I am dead serious about that. First of all, the place was extremely hot, dirty and extremely dangerous…those are the good points. The first day I worked there, the foreman opened up this trap door in the floor and told me to go into this pit and shovel sand on to the conveyer belt there. When I got down there, I was up to my knees in sand. It was so dark down there I couldn’t see two feet in front of my face. There was black sand swirling around all over the place. When the foreman called for me to come back up after about an hour down there, two guys came up with me and I didn’t even know they were down there. I am serious, it was just that dark and dirty down there. What they did at the foundry was make molds for missiles out of that black sand. Once the molds were made, they were filled with molten steel and set to cool. After the molds cooled off, they were put in this large contraption called a shakeout machine. When the machine was turned on, it would shake the sand off of molds. The missiles were then gathered and stacked. As you could probably imagine, the entire place was saturated with black sand. I’m not lying, I could go through the front door, walk through the entire building, which was about a block and a half long, and when I walked out the back door, I had so much sand on me that I’d be darker than Bill Cosby after a two week tropical vacation. You can probably comprehend what it would be like to pull an eight hour shift in this environment. When I got done, I would have sand in my hair, nose, ears, pants, shoes and even in underwear. To give you an idea of how bad it was, when I went back to college at the end of the summer, I was still blowing sand out of my nose two weeks later! From day one, I complained to my father that I was going to get black lung if I continued to work there. I even threatened that I was going to report him for child abuse. Complaining to my father was like complaining to the Surgeon General. He always had an explanation as to why, in his words, “it will be all right!” I didn’t want to admit it at the time, but his explanation for why I wouldn’t develop black lung was rather plausible…which would make me mad as hell. The first thing he would point out is that small particles (like sand) that are inhaled through the nose are usually trapped by hairs and mucous in your nose. He also mentioned that even if particles evaded the nasal tract, specially constructed wind tunnels in the mouth and nasal passage would swirl the particles around until the saliva in my mouth snared them. Then, he said I could either spit the sand out or swallow it. If I swallowed it, the particles would go down my esophagus into my stomach and then eventually to the Tidy Bowl Man. I’d say, “Yeah Dad, but with all of that sand in the foundry, some of it would have get into my bronchial tube.” Naturally, my Dad had an explanation for that too. He would say, “Even if some of the sand got that far, your bronchial tubes produce a sticky mucous that would trap the particles.” Then I would counter, “Even if the mucous did trap the sand wouldn’t gravity force the mucous and the particles into my
Chapter 10 - Legal Drugs ________________________________________
lungs?” He would give me that stupid Italian smirk and say, “Yeah! Except your bronchial tubes are lined with hairs called cilia, which sweep the trapped particles back up into your mouth so that you can either spit it out or swallow it and send it to the Tidy Bowl Man.” Then he’d say even if the particles got by the cilia, you have a cough reflex near the base of your bronchial tube that when activated will force the particles back up the respiratory tract and into your mouth. Naturally, I still wasn’t going to give in. Heck, I was fighting for my life here. “With all that sand,” I would protest, “some of it has to get into my lungs.” As you might expect, my father had an answer for that, too. “If particles happened to get past all these protective mechanisms, your wind tunnels, the bronchial cell mucus, the cilia (mucal- escalator) and the cough reflex and get to your lungs, white blood cells will attack the foreign particles and destroy or immobilize them.” So, according to my dad, I had a whole arsenal of defense mechanisms to protect me against foreign particles entering my respiratory track. When I checked his story out in my anatomy and physiology books, I realized that he was right to a point… that really made me mad. Normally, a person’s defense mechanisms would clean the lungs of any dangerous materials. Even in an environment like the foundry, the system is adept at keeping the respiratory tract fairly clean. However, when the system is constantly overloaded, it may not be able to remove all the particles. Consequently, there is a danger of detrimental effects like black lung. That’s right; my father was trying to kill me. Of course, we are talking about an environment that is extremely polluted. In a normal environment, the defense mechanisms are extremely efficient at keeping the respiratory track spike and span. So, what does all this have to do with smoking? Well I’ll let my intellectually constipated friends explain that to you.