In previous issues we have discussed the broad effects of smoking on the respiratory, cardiovascular, and nervous systems. In this article we will address some general effects that smoking has on health.
Besides lung cancer there are many other types of cancer affecting the mouth, throat, vocal cords, pancreas, stomach, intestines, cervix, kidney and bladder that are increased due to smoking. In women who smoke, the reproductive system of the female is affected by a decreased fertility. This can cause an increase in miscarriages, stillborn infants, congenital birth defects, premature, underweight and undersized infants and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
A study performed at Berkeley University and published in The American Journal of Epidemiology, April 2006, showed a fourfold increase in childhood leukemia if the child’s father smoked before the conception. Although not all studies with childhood leukemia have been consistent, this was a significant study into the effects of paternal smoking on children. The European Journal of Cancer Prevention reported that fathers who smoked over 20 cigarettes daily are faced with enhanced hazards of fathering a baby with a central nervous system tumor. According to Dr. Bouffet, when men smoke tobacco it may stimulate transformation or change in the sperm. The results of another study published in The American Journal of Public Health, May 1985, showed overall cancer risks to adults to be increased by 50 per cent among the offspring of smoking men. The incidence of ear infection, bronchitis, pneumonia, colds, and asthma increases not only in the smoker, but also in those in the family or the work place regularly breathing the secondhand smoke.
Some cosmetic changes associated with smoking include accelerated aging and wrinkling of the skin, yellowing of the skin and especially the fingers and the hair becomes more brittle and grays earlier. It is a very sobering thought that the poison from cigarettes entering into the blood stream is carried to every cell of the body. Smoking produces carbon monoxide poison, which attaches more aggressively to the red blood cells than oxygen. It then robs every cell in the body of the oxygen necessary for maintenance, growth and repair. Is it any wonder that so many conditions of ill health and disease are directly related to smoking and who knows how many more are indirectly related?
Clearly, cigarette smoking is an attack of the devil against mankind and another way in which he can enslave men through his/her carnal flesh. What a blessing it is to understand the eight laws of health and counsel that states, “True Temperance teaches us to dispense entirely with everything hurtful and to use judiciously that which is healthful.” Patriarchs and Prophets, 562.