Safe limit for smoking so as not to cause disease

Many people say they only smoke occasionally, for example, one cigarette per day. Apart from that, there is also a term social smoking or those who smoke only when they are hanging out with friends. Actually, what is the safe limit for smoking that is still allowed, so that it will not cause disease?

What happens to my body when I smoke?

Smoking is known to the public as a major death factor in the world. There are many known health dangers of smoking, including asthma, lung infections, oral cancer, throat cancer, lung cancer, heart attacks, strokes, dementia, erectile dysfunction, and so on. In fact, as you know, smoking is not only harmful to the smoker, but also to the people around him.

David Currow, a Cancer Institute lecturer from New South Wales, Australia said in ABC Australia that there are several things that happen to your body when you smoke, including when you just inhale secondhand smoke.

• Even if you feel relaxed when you smoke, your blood pressure and heart rate increase and blood flow to the capillaries decreases.
• The carbon monoxide in the blood increases and so the oxygen level decreases.
• The fine hairs in the respiratory tract will be damaged by the chemicals in cigarette smoke and the small muscles in the respiratory tract will continue to contract.
• The immune system (immune system) weakens and shows changes.

Medically, what is the safe limit for smoking?

To find a safe limit to smoking, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, conducted an evaluation of 800 studies on smoking habits. From these studies, the researchers got a conclusion that was quite surprising.

For those of you who smoke one to four cigarettes per day, here are the health risks that may occur.

• Lung cancer risk increased 2.8 times greater
• The risk of esophageal cancer increased by 4.3 times greater
• The risk of gastric cancer increased 2.4 times greater

In fact, for those who only occasionally smoke, death rate or the death rate was 1.6 times higher than those who did not smoke at all. The research is published on the Harvard University website.

Russel Luepker, a professor of cardiology from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis, United States, says in WebMD it is not safe at all for people who only smoke occasionally.

Cliff Douglas, who is the Vice Chair of the American Cancer Society, explains on the organization's official website that the difference between not smoking at all and smoking a little is dramatic. He said that the risk of cancer and other life-threatening diseases remains significant even if you are a smoker with a low smoking intensity. In other words, actually there is no safe limit to smoking.

How to avoid the health risks of smoking every now and then

Quitting smoking is the best and most effective way to avoid health risks if you are a person who rarely smokes.

Currently, there are various ways to quit smoking, ranging from psychological therapy, hypnosis, to using independent methods. Remember, those of you who rarely smoke have a better chance of breaking this habit immediately. The reason is, your brain and blood have not been too contaminated by harmful substances from addictive cigarettes.