Smoking KILLS

Every year hundreds of thousands of people
around the world die from diseases caused by smoking.

One
in two lifetime smokers will die from their habit. Half
of these deaths will occur in middle age.

Tobacco
smoke also contributes to a number of  cancers.

The
mixture of nicotine and carbon monoxide in each cigarette you smoke temporarily increases
your heart rate and blood pressure, straining your heart and blood
vessels.

This
can cause heart attacks and stroke. It slows your blood flow, cutting off
oxygen to your feet and hands. Some smokers end up having their limbs

amputated.

Tar
coats your lungs like soot in a chimney and causes cancer. A 20-a-day
smoker breathes in up to a full cup (210 g) of tar in a year.

Changing to low-tar cigarettes does not help
because smokers usually take deeper puffs and hold the smoke in for longer, dragging the
tar deeper into their lungs.

Carbon monoxide robs your muscles, brain and body
tissue of oxygen, making your whole body and especially your heart  work harder. Over
time, your airways swell up and let less air into your lungs.

Smoking causes disease and is a slow way to die.
The strain put on your body by smoking often causes years of suffering. Emphysema
is an illness that slowly rots your lungs. People with emphysema often get bronchitis
again and again, and suffer lung and heart failure.

Lung cancer from smoking  is caused by the
tar in tobacco smoke. Men who smoke are ten times more likely to die from
lung cancer than non-smokers.

Heart disease and strokes are also more common
among smokers than non-smokers.

Smoking causes fat deposits to narrow and block
blood vessels which leads to heart attack.

Smoking causes around one in five deaths from
heart disease.

In younger people, three out of four deaths from
heart disease are due to smoking