The Anti-Tobacco Movement

Anti-Tobacco Day---

A lot is being said and written about this today. Let me tell you exactly what happens to you after decades of smoking and this is first hand experience. It is known to all, that tobacco causes cancer and heart diseases. However you have a percentage chance to escape both . What you cannot escape surely is C O P D [ Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease ]- Shortness of Breath, perpetual coughing , phlegm , mucus , bronchial inflammation and irritation- so on and so forth. Every puff you inhale, leaves a residue of carbon in your lungs. Lets see how- 

To understand COPD, it helps to understand how the lungs work. The air that you breathe goes down your windpipe into tubes in your lungs called bronchial tubes or airways.

Within the lungs, your bronchial tubes branch into thousands of smaller, thinner tubes called bronchioles. These tubes end in bunches of tiny round air sacs called alveoli .

Small blood vessels called capillaries run through the walls of the air sacs. When air reaches the air sacs, the oxygen in the air passes through the air sac walls into the blood in the capillaries. At the same time, carbon dioxide (a waste gas) moves from the capillaries into the air sacs. This process is called gas exchange.

The airways and air sacs are elastic (stretchy). When you breathe in, each air sac fills up with air like a small balloon. When you breathe out, the air sacs deflate and the air goes out. C O P D includes 2 main conditions - 1. Emphysema and 2. Chronic Bronchitis. Second by second, minute by minute with each inhalation of smoke we destroy the air sacs or alveoli because of the residual carbon . 

When you lie down at night, you cannot sleep properly- have to raise yourself for some degree of comfort and even then you are unable to breathe deeply . 

I am telling you from personal experience that even if you escape Cancer and Heart trouble by some fluke chance- you cannot escape this and in all probability will lead to death . Doctors tell you about Cancer and Heart trouble when you consult them but perhaps because this is a slow train to Destination Death- they do not appraise you of C O P D with the same degree of seriousness or not at all . 

BEWARE FRIENDS- SMOKE AT YOUR OWN PERIL

Dilip Apte