The effects of smoking on the body Almost a third of the world's population smokes for one reason or another, appearance, stress reduction, etc. However, I, and many others, find it very hard to believe that smoking can help someone's appearance as it encourages premature aging, and I don't think any of the risks that smoking brings are worth the amount of stress relief it can supply. Cigarette smoking can have serious health effects on the human body. Smoking causes a number of potentially fatal diseases. This is because they contain more than 4,000 chemicals (www.click2quit.co.uk), of which 43 cause cancer (www.betterhealthchannel.com.au). Nicotine is a substance contained in cigarettes which, although it does not cause cancer, is a highly addictive, toxic and potentially lethal drug (www.click2quit.co.uk). Aside from its use in tobacco products, nicotine is a scheduled poison. Tobacco smoke contains many dangerous chemicals, the most harmful of which are: tar, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, metals and radioactive compounds. All these factors contribute to seriously damaging the health of the body through a variety of diseases. Smoking is proven to have harmful effects on most if not all areas of the body. The circulatory system may suffer from increased blood pressure, thrombosis, atherosclerosis, and increased risk of stroke and heart attack due to blockages in blood supply caused by the buildup of fatty deposits on artery walls and narrowing blood vessels . Smoking can also impede blood flow to the extremities, causing muscles to tighten and bone density to decrease, damaging......central carcinoma......and squamous cell carcinoma. NSCLC involves vital organs and organ systems within the respiratory system and throughout the body being engulfed by the tumor. (www.vh.org) While few people argue that smoking can be beneficial for stress, I strongly disagree that smoking can in any way be beneficial enough to be worth the risk of any of the effects discussed above. I agree that cigarettes can be addictive due to the effects of the nicotine in them, but I would never consider the risk of lung cancer for a little stress relief from smoking, as there is clearly a strong link between the two. This link can also be demonstrated by an estimated 430,000 deaths each year caused directly by cigarette smoking (www.mamashealth.com), which I consider to be far too great a risk for any amount of stress relief..