• Question: when you smoke why does it damage your lungs?

    Asked by cristiano7 to Amar, Ana, Andrea, Leah, Matt on 10 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by cupcake94.
    • Photo: Matthew Lam

      Matthew Lam answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      Tobacco is a plant which is made up of thousands of different chemical compounds. When you smoke, some of these compounds are released in the smoke which is inhaled into the lungs. Some of these compounds are very toxic and what we would call a ‘carcinogen’. A carcinogen is a compound which is capable of causing cancer.

      These carcinogens can cause damage to the DNA in cells of your lungs and cause mutations to DNA that cause cancer to form.

      So if you continue to inhale carcinogens through smoking than you massively increase the chance of getting a DNA mutation that causes lung cancer.

    • Photo: Anastasia Wass

      Anastasia Wass answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      There are lots of bad chemicals in smoke, called carcinogens. These bind to your DNA and damage it.
      Damaged DNA stops cells dividing properly so smoking can cause bits of your lung to die so they don’t work very well.
      Cells that do divide with damaged DNA are badly damaged so often become cancerous.

    • Photo: Andrea Hanvey

      Andrea Hanvey answered on 10 Mar 2014:

      Tobbacco contains more than 70 harmful carcinogens (toxic substances) when inhaled these damage DNA in lung cells and cause mutations which may lead to lung cancer. smoking isnt just related to lung cancer though,smoking also increases the risk of cancers including cancers of the mouth, larynx, pharynx , nose, oesophagus, liver, pancreas, stomach, kidney, bladder, cervix and bowel.

    • Photo: Amar Joshi

      Amar Joshi answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      Matthew, Andrea and Anastasia have given great answers.

      In addition to causing cancer, smoke can damage the lung tissue itself. The smoke contains a mixture of small particles which goes deep inside the lungs. This delivers the toxins and carcinogens but the small particles are damaging themselves. The damage the fine details in the lungs reducing the amount of oxygen you can take in.

Comments