What is secondhand smoke?
Second hand smoke or environmental smoke is the smoke given out by the burning end of a cigarette as well as smoke exhaled by the smoker after puffing on a cigarette. It contains almost the same number of chemicals as present in the smoke that the smoker inhales and is extremely toxic.
What is emphysema?
Emphysema is a chronic disorder of the lungs that affects mainly smokers and passive smokers. It reduces the lungs’ capacity to take in oxygen and causes problems in breathing. It usually follows chronic bronchitis.
Secondhand smoke and lung disease
An individual who is exposed to and breathes in secondhand smoke is called a passive smoker. If an individual, especially children, are exposed to secondhand smoke very frequently over a period of time, it has now been proven to have similar physiological effects as on the smoker himself/herself. It can cause cancers, lung disease and other infections especially of the respiratory tract.
Recent researches and studies have shown that children who have been exposed continuously to passive smoke are more likely to develop lung diseases, mainly asthma and emphysema, early in their adult life. This is because the smoke gets in and stays in their system. This then starts slowly affecting the tissues of the lungs, making the lungs weaker as the child grows up.
This may initially be manifested as asthma, coughing or bronchitis, slowly deteriorating to emphysema. This is because the lungs get damaged due to exposure to secondhand smoke. The lungs usually are not able to recover from this initial damage and it only gets worse as the child grows up into an adult.
There are no differences related to sex among those who get affected by secondhand smoke. But it has been observed that those having mothers who smoke are more seriously affected as compared to having a male member in the family or home who smokes. This may simply be because the child is in greater contact and proximity to the mothers compared to other members of the family.
All in all, it is important to make sure that you do not smoke in front of or anywhere around the children in the house. If this is not done, it may not only affect their health due to inhalation of secondhand smoke but also encourage them to take up smoking later in life.
