Benefits of smoking !

• Muhamad Rawi
• 05/16/2018
• 2042
• 2,691

Smoking is a bad habit and it is considered the most dangerous silent killer in the world. Everyone even the smokers know that smoking is bad and they always have the thoughts of quitting smoking one day. Doctors keep warning us about smoking, even some governments force smoking companies to print ugly images of sick people on smoking packs while almost all smoking packs have warnings against smoking.

Smoking is bad indeed and we aren't arguing about it but in this article we try to spotlight some of the missed benefits of smoking. That's not an invitation to try smoking for non-smokers and not even an argument to prove smoking is right. Smoking is wrong, totally wrong, but these are some fun facts that it can't be all wrong like anything in life. It can be even beneficial in some medical cases like the following:

1- Smoking reduces the risk of Ulcerative Colitis:

Ulcerative Colitis is a gastrointestinal diseases that could be referred to also as inflammatory bowl disease (IBD). The mechanism is unknown but some medical papers have noticed that smoking could be helpful in treatment of IBD or even preventing it fro occurrence. Smoking, on the other hand, has a major rule in propagating other gastrointestinal diseases like gastric ulcers, Crohn's disease, and many types of gastrointestinal cancers but for ulcerative colitis only it could be helpful !.

2- Parkinson's disease:

Smoking may be helpful in decreasing the risk of propagation of parkinsonism which expresses itself as inability to maintain stable muscle tone and power (remember Mohamed Ali?). The incidence of parkinsonism is non-smoker is 3 times greater than smokers. However, smokers are more likely to die of lung cancer and cardiac diseases with 10 folds more than non-smokers. The mechanism of smoking preventing parkinsonism is still not quiet interpreted in full but may be due to necotine (inert substance in tobacco)  which helps the release of dopamine (a neurotransmitter) which maintains muscle power. 

3- Obesity:

Smokers are more likely to experience change in taste and appetite so they tend not to eat much. Smoking disrupts the appetite circuit in brain leading to less appetite and hence losing of weight. This effect depends mainly on the amount and type of smoking and it was found through numerous studies over decades that at least 40 cigarettes daily needed to experience appetite changes which is too much for regular smokers. This very high smoking index could rather possess a greater risk to smokers health than staying skinny and like we said, the major risk factor is the propagation of both lung and heart diseases.

4- Myocardial infarction:

Smokers and especially those who started smoking during earlier years of life suffer from higher incidences of cardiac disorders like infarction, arrhythmia, and atherosclerosis of heard vessels. The paradox is smokers are more likely to survive myocardial infarction than non-smokers and the reason is that smokers experience myocardial infarction earlier in life with better physical state due to younger age and so they have higher chances to survive unlike non-smokers who experience it more likely in older ages which is fatal due to poor general health and physical state.

5- Knee joint replacement:

Due to previous fact that smokers are less likely to be obese, it was found by a recent study in Australia that smokers are less liable to knee joint malfunction and the need for total knee replacement. Or at least you can control your over weight to keep your chances from suffering such surgery.

6- Enhancing the effect of some drugs:

Smoking leads to activation of some liver enzymes (cytochromes) which have a major rule in activation of some drugs like (clopidogrel- commercially known as plavix), a drug used for lowering risk of intra-vascular thrombosis for protection from heart diseases and other diseases like deep vascular thrombosis. A recent Korean study stated that smoking 10 cigarettes daily could be beneficial in activation of clopedogril which is used to protect against some hazards of smoking itself !.

And in the end, the main reason for this article is to deliver some fun facts about smoking but it is not an invitation to try it anyway. Smoking is hazardous to general health and it could affect almost all systems of body with very bad health outcomes like different types of cancer, myocardial diseases, lung diseases, dementia, gastrointestinal diseases and many others. We wish for a world free of smoking. If you like this article, share it with friends.