Is Secondhand Smoking Really Dangerous To The Health Of Non-Smokers?
The term "secondhand smoking" was coined to be the description of an innocent bystander inhaling smoke from someone else's cigarette or cigar. Typically these innocent bystanders are non-smokers who complain that those individuals who smoke around them is a danger to their health. Also called passive smoking, this is indeed a problem.
Why All The Fuss?
You can generally count on at least one news story on television each day that covers something to do with smoking, the dangers of smoking, or secondhand smoke reports. Studies and statistics seem to updated and reported on every month. But with all of this information and news coverage, how are we supposed to tell what is true or what is hype? Is secondhand smoking as dangerous as it has been labeled to be? Is it possible for secondhand smoke to really endanger the health of a non-smoker?
Secondhand Smoking Facts
The truth of the matter is, yes, secondhand smoking is a hazard to those individuals who do not smoke. This is especially true if you are smoking around children and babies. Did you know that the latest research study indicated that a non-smoker who lives with a smoker will inhale up to 15% of the chemicals from the smoke? To put it another way, for every 10 cigarettes that your spouse or housemate sucks up, approximately one half of those 10 cigarettes are going straight into your lungs.
If this news comes as a shock to you then consider as well that this percentage of inhaled secondhand smoke will do twice as much damage to non-smokers who have health problems, especially to their immune system. The same holds true for children, whom are still developing their internal organs. Kids who inhale secondhand smoke are endangering the growth of the heart and lungs.
In addition, other serious health risks that involve children who inhale from secondhand smoking include developing lifelong asthma, various types of lung infections, bronchitis and other respiratory diseases. If this wasn't bad enough, doctors also conclude that your baby may face the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) as a result of secondhand smoking. And to top it all off, how would you feel about your child growing up with severe learning disabilities because he or she was exposed to secondhand smoke even before birth?
Pets Also Face Health Risks
Nobody ever considers the health of their family dog or cat in the big picture of things when it comes to secondhand smoking.
They might just be our pets but these little animals also have a heart and lungs that can become sick from inhaling passive smoke. Many cancers in pets have been attributed to living in a house where the owners smoked for years. There is even a detailed veterinarian study which concluded that secondhand smoke can directly cause a cat to develop feline lymphoma.
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