Health Hazards Associated With Secondhand Smoke Article

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Health Hazards Associated with Secondhand Smoke

The hazardous effects of secondhand smoke are well recognized by experts in the healthcare field, for which reason one’s degree of exposure should be determined and appropriately dealt with if indicated.

Author: Victor Battles

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The harmful health effects of exposure to secondhand smoke are well recognized by experts in the healthcare field. Secondhand smoke is that environmental tobacco smoke resulting from burning tobacco. There are two forms of secondhand or passive smoke, mainstream smoke and sidestream smoke. Mainstream smoke is that which is exhaled by a smoker. Sidestream smoke is the smoke which streams directly from the burning tobacco product. Either form unfortunately is harmful to innocent individuals who involuntarily engage in passive smoking as a result of it the tobacco pollution caused by the willful smoker.

If it were not bad enough that nicotine which is a powerfully addictive substance with harmful health effects is present in passive smoke, tobacco also produces more than 4000 chemicals of which 250 are toxic. Worse yet, 50 of the chemicals in passive smoke are felt to be carcinogenic or cancer-causing. Some of those cancer-causing chemicals are as follows:

• Benzene -- A component of gasoline
• Formaldehyde -- A chemical used to embalm corpses
• Hydrogen cyanide -- A highly poisonous gas used in chemical weapons
• Carbon monoxide – A gas in automobile exhaust

The Surgeon General issued a report in 2006 concluding that secondhand smoke can kill and that there is no safe amount of passive smoke. The report also concluded that the greater the degree of passive smoke exposure the greater the health risks.

Some alarming statistics relating to secondhand smoke exposure are as follows:

• In the United States alone 126 million people non-smokers are exposed to passive smoke at home and/or at work.

• In the United States 50,000 people per year die because of passive smoke exposure.

• In the United States approximately 3000 deaths per year occur because of lung disease in non-smokers caused by passive smoking.

• Secondhand smoke exposure increases non-smokers’ risk of developing lung cancer by between 20% and 30% and their risk of developing heart disease by 25% to 30%.

• Exposure to passive smoke results in the development of respiratory conditions such as pneumonia and bronchitis in between 150,000 and 300,000 children under the age of 18 months, causing between 7,500 and 15,000 to be hospitalized.

• More than 40% of children who require visits to emergency rooms for severe asthma attacks live in homes where smoking occurs.

Given these alarming facts and statistics about the harmful effects of exposure to secondhand smoke, it is important to determine your degree of exposure if you are a non-smoker in a home where someone smokes or if you are possibly exposed to passive smoke in the workplace.

Thanks to a home test kit which gives instant quantitative results it is now possible to determine not only if you are exposed to passive smoke, but also your degree of exposure. There is also a quantitative test kit designed for professional use. Each kit comes in two types. One requires the use of a urine specimen for testing. The other uses saliva.

By determining your level of environmental tobacco exposure you can then take the necessary actions to address one of life's serious health hazards.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purpose only and is not intended to be a substitute for medical consultation with a qualified professional. The author encourages Internet users to be careful when utilizing medical information obtained from the Internet and to consult your doctor before make decisions that can affect your health or if you are unsure about your medical condition.

About Author

To learn more about quantitative nicotine test kits and to obtain the test kits for determination of you level of secondhand smoke exposure visit http://www.proactivehealthoutlet.com.

Article Source: http://www.1888articles.com/author-victor-battles-23279.html

Health Hazards Associated with Secondhand Smoke