Tobacco Smoke and Asthma
Why is secondhand smoke so bad?
Tobacco smoke, whether you inhale your own cigarette or breathe in secondhand smoke, is dangerous to your health. When you have asthma, it can be even worse.
Health Effects of Secondhand Smoke
The exposure of secondhand smoke has been linked with many bad health effects, including many cancers, heart disease, sudden infant death syndrome, middle ear problems and respiratory conditions. Secondhand smoke is dangerous to everyone, although unborn babies, infants and children are at the most risk because their bodies are still growing.
Secondhand smoke contains: formaldehyde (embalming fluid), cyanide (poison) arsenic (poison), carbon monoxide (car exhaust), methane (poison), benzene (poison in cleaning solvent), nitro amines (cancer-causing compounds), cadmium (toxic metal), benzopyrene (cancer -causing substance found in gasoline and tar), aniline (poison used in dye) and polonium (radioactive materials).
Tobacco smoke is an irritant to the lungs. People with asthma who smoke or are exposed to secondhand smoke have a higher risk for asthma attacks because their airways are overly sensitive. Secondhand smoke is more harmful to nonsmokers because their bodies are not as used to smoke exposure, as smoker’s bodies are.
Listed below are the known health effects of secondhand smoke:
Adults
- Secondhand smoke exposure can cause lung cancer.
- Secondhand smoke exposure increases the risk of getting nasal sinus cancer.
- Secondhand smoke is well known as a risk factor for heart attack and stroke.
- Secondhand smoke irritates the lungs, leading to coughing, excess mucus, chest discomfort, and poorer lung function.
- Eye and nose irritation in adults can occur after being around secondhand smoke.
Children
- Children who breathe secondhand smoke can have more frequent and more severe asthma attacks.
- Secondhand smoke may cause children to develop asthma.
- Children who breathe secondhand smoke are more likely to get pneumonia, bronchitis, breathing problems that don’t get better, and poor lung function.
- Children who breathe secondhand smoke are more likely to have more middle ear infections.
- Infants who breathe secondhand smoke are at a higher risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), the main cause of death in babies between one month and one year of age.
- Secondhand smoke can result in infants with low birth weight or be small for gestational age
Where Is the Smoke?
Exposure to secondhand smoke can come from many locations including homes, restaurants, work sites, public places, and vehicles. Currently, there is a strong movement to cut secondhand smoke exposure in public places and workplaces. By putting policies that limit smoking in place, this movement has been helpful in cutting exposure to secondhand smoke in public places.
The greatest exposure for children usually comes in the home. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 15 million children are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke in the home. Children differ from adults because they are less able to control their environment on their own to limit their exposure to secondhand smoke. This is because infants and very young children are not able to protest, older children may not protest, or they may be ignored or scolded when they do.
What can be done to protect children ?
- Choose not to smoke in your home and don’t allow others to do so.
- Teach your children how secondhand smoke affects their health and the health of others.
- Choose not to smoke around children.
- Choose to avoid smoke filled areas.
- Choose to not smoke in your car.
- Make sure your day care buildings are smoke-free.
- Choose to eat at smoke-free restaurants.
- Choose non-smoking hotel rooms.
- Take the Smoke-Free Home Pledge.
Secondhand Smoke and the Work site ?
The most important location of secondhand smoke exposure for adults is in the work place. Experts believe that a large number of the estimated 30,000 to 60,000 secondhand smoke related deaths that occur each year in the U.S. are caused by workplace exposures.
Secondhand smoke is a class A carcinogen, something known to cause cancer in humans. There is no safe level of exposure to a cancer-causing agent. Simply dividing smokers from nonsmokers within the same airspace may cut down exposure to secondhand smoke, but cannot get rid of it.
Workers exposed to secondhand smoke on the job are 34 percent more likely to get lung cancer. Exposure to secondhand smoke can also result in worsened asthma symptoms, poor blood circulation, bronchitis, and pneumonia. People who work in hotels, motels, casinos, bars and restaurants are among the most exposed of all workers.
The development and implementation of smoke-free policies in work sites and public places protect employees and the general public from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. Smoke-free policies also prompt more smokers to try and quit, increase the number of successful quit attempts, reduce the number of cigarettes that continuing smokers consume, and discourage kids from ever starting to smoke.
