Undisputedly we all know cigarettes and the other tobacco products are pretty harmful to human health and should be avoided for a better quality of life. But have you ever wondered why they are harmful ? What is going on in our brain and other pertain structures behind the scene when we exposure aforementioned things. In this content we are going to take a closer look at how do we know the cigarettes and similar products are harmful to us and what they esentially do to our bodies.

Smoking habit damages nearly every organ of the human body, causes many diseases and psychological problems, we can list the diseases that have been found to be related to smoking as follows :

• Cancer

• Heart disease and stroke

• Lung diseases

• Type 2 Diabetes

• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), including emphysema and chronic bronchitis

• Reduced Fertility

And many more which we couldn’t mention here due to the limit of space.

The point we want to get here by listing these diseases is to illimunate in which ways have we explored these diseases are caused by cigarettes ?

Mainly the knowledge we have related to the diseases caused by cigarettes and tobacco products like cigarettes comes from studying the cases of people who have smoking habit and then develop related health issues. And the leading methods in this which are used relatively frequent are:

1. Epidemiological Studies:

Cohort Studies: Track large groups of people over time, comparing those who smoke with those who don’t, to see how their health outcomes differ.

Case-Control Studies: Compare individuals with a disease (cases) to those without it (controls) to see if smoking history is more common among the cases.

2. Dose-Response Relationship: Researchers look for a correlation between the amount of smoking (dose) and the risk of disease (response). A higher dose leading to a higher risk strengthens the argument that smoking is the cause.

3. Biological Plausibility: Scientists study the biological mechanisms through which smoking could cause disease. For example, identifying carcinogens in cigarette smoke that can damage DNA and lead to cancer.

4. Animal Studies: Experiments on animals are conducted to observe the direct effects of cigarette smoke or its components on health. While ethical concerns limit these studies, they can provide insight into mechanisms of disease.

5. Experimental Studies: In controlled environments, researchers expose cells or tissues to cigarette smoke or its components to observe the biological effects, such as DNA damage, inflammation, or cancerous changes.

Example study results

Since we know enough about the damage of cigarettes to our organs and the way we clarify that this damage is indeed due to smoking cigarettes now, we can go into another realm of cigarettes effects.

First of all as you can guess indispensable component of the cigarette is nicotine and actually this is not the thing causing the diseases we have mentioned but making the smoker addicted and in continuation implicitly causing the diseases in long periods of time.

Molecular structure of nicotine

This process (effect of nicotine) happens in a few steps, initially when the tobacco product is smoked the smoke direclty goes to the lungs and the nicotine enters to the bloodstream.

When the nicotine is in the bloodstream as it reaches to the brain via the blood carrying it most of the nicotine binds to the acetylcoline receptors which triggers release of hormones dopamine, serotonine, norepinephrine etc..

In normal conditions release of these hormones which function as the reward mechanism of the human body, occurs when something with evolutionary advantage for human survival happens get us to be motivated to do it more. Therefore when the nicotine triggers our reward mechanism unnecessarily, harmfully and last but not least unnaturally.

This unnatural progress reasoning by consumption of cigarettes leads to the malfunction in natural levels of happiness.

How the nicotine binds to the receptor and triggers the release of hormones

We can explain why it causes that malfunction by using a simple logic, when a person tries to quit smoking the levels of dopamine’s and aforementioned hormone’s recognition level go lower than the normal level, because when the cells are exposed to unnaturally high levels of stimulus thanks to the nicotine binding to the acetylcoline receptors brain intends to adapt this new frequency of stimulation and lowers the amount of receptors for providing normal levels of happiness.

And even if the person quit smoking the decreased amount of receptors that have effect on how much the “happiness” hormones are bound and recognized needs time to get back to normal.