Movies and TV often portray a sultry woman as
a chain smoker.
Smoking was a way they showed sex appeal. Rita
Hayworth was often pictured with a cigarette in hand. Sharon Stone in Basic
Instinct smoked like a chimney in that famous interrogation scene. Bad girls
that men went crazy over smoked. Sultry beauty and cigarettes or cigars went
hand in hand.
The reality is far from what is portrayed in
movies.
Smoking causes your skin to age prematurely
and gives it a sickly coloring. It discolors your teeth, gives you an
un-sexy cough and bad breath. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
Did you know that cigarettes contain more than
4,000 chemicals, many of them are toxic. Not to mention nicotine, the drug that
gives smokers their high, is very addictive. Many people want to quit but are
unable to do so because of the withdrawal symptoms that take hold
once they try to stop. Even if they succeed in weathering through the
withdrawal symptoms, the craving for just one stick is still very strong. One
stick leads to another and before you know it, you’re hooked again. That’s the
addictive power of nicotine.
Let’s start with how smoking ages you
prematurely.
There’s so much talk about the anti-aging
properties of anti-oxidants. Anti-oxidants work by neutralizing free radicals.
Free radicals are created through oxidization and in the body’s normal
processes. Under ordinary circumstances, the body can easily get rid of the
free radicals it creates. If too many free radicals are created, then you’ll
have a problem. Free radicals steal electrons from other cells. This stealing
of electrons damages the cells, affecting the cell membranes and even the DNA
of the cells. That would affect the reproduction of cells and may even cause
cells to malfunction. That speeds up the aging process.
How does smoking relate to that?
Every puff of cigarette smoke results in more
than a trillion free radicals in your lungs. How much damage would that cause
to your body? Notice how a long-term smoker in her forties would have a lined
face which looks as old as a non-smoker in her sixties, all other things being
equal. Notice the lines around the mouth, the eyes, down the cheeks and slack
skin that smokers usually have?
Researchers from
Cigarette smoke contains carbon monoxide. Have
you heard of stories of people dying of carbon monoxide poisoning because they slept
in a car with the windows closed and the engine on? Carbon monoxide displaces
oxygen in your body, starving your cells of the oxygen it needs. Guess what.
Cigarette smoke contains carbon monoxide. In smokers, that results in skin that
is gray or yellow instead of a healthy pink. How beautiful is that?
That’s just the skin alone. Add that to
falling hair, yellowed teeth and shortness of breath, which affects your
ability to exercise, and you can see how cigarettes destroy a person’s
appearance. I’m not even going into cancer and other diseases
linked to smoking and how the diseases affect ones appearance.
If you want to look good, stay off cigarettes.
Source: http://www.healthguidance.org/authors/183/Janice-Wee
Janice Wee