25 things that happen inside your body when you smoke

Stress out, bored or simply craving that nicotine fix – smoking is usually a solution to all of these problems. But did you know that in order to beat that boredom you are slipping down the unending crevasse of death. How you ask? Here is what smoking does to your health and eventually causes cancer, right from when you light up to when you exhale.
Your first drag:
1. Whether you light your cigarette using a matchstick or a lighter, the first puff is the most damaging. The smoke emitted from the match and the cigarette form a strong cocktail that can leave the mucous lining in your nose damaged.

2. Apart from that the heat from the cigarette affects the skin on your face and most importantly around your nose and mouth. The heat causes your lips to darken, leads to wrinkles and the appearance of age spots. Another reason for darkening of a smokers lips is the fact that the tar in the cigarette tends to adhere to the lips, soon staining them.

3. Not to mention the constant pouting and sucking that one has to do in order to take a puff also leads to what is known as a smoker’s pout. Where when you pout you will see the appearance of fine lines around the lips – something that does not happen in non-smokers.

What the smoke does to the insides of your mouth:
4. When the smoke is inside your mouth, the tar starts to coat the enamel of your teeth, discolouring them.
 
5. The heat from the smoke also damages the cells in and around your mouth, and in some cases leading to a change in their DNA – causing mutations. Once  inside the mouth the tar and other chemicals affect all parts of your oral cavity.

6. The chemicals present in a cigarette are numerous and they form a coat your tongue, palate and the inside of your cheeks. It deadens your taste buds, hyperactivates your salivary glands and eventually blocks them, leading to a lack of saliva in your mouth. That is also one of the reasons smokers need a drink of water after a smoke.

7. The tar and chemicals also coat the roof of your mouth, leading to a condition called the ‘smoker’s palate’ where the roof of your mouth gets coated with a whitish residue with small red spots protruding from it. These protrusions  are actually the opening of ducts of glands present on the palate.

8. Smoking also kills the good bacteria within your mouth, giving way to bad breath and a condition called oral thrush. 

9. It also leads to gum disease, discolours your gums – turning them black, leads to cavities and causes oral cancer. This is mainly because the heat combined with the chemicals in smoke tend to damage cells leading to mutations and change in their DNA. This change may affect either their mechanism of multiplying in a uniform manner or the one that stops their multiplication.

10. Smoking also affects your olfactory system (nose) leading an eventual loss in your ability to smell.

When the smoke enters your throat:
11. Once you start to inhale the smoke, it first hits the back of your mouth or the beginning of your throat, this place is packed with blood vessels that immediately contract. It also affects the mucosal cells lining this part of your throat, eventually deadening them. This can lead to infections, excessive dryness and irritation. One of the commonest complaints a smoker has is that they feel an itchy sensation at the back of their mouth. This is due to the irritation and dryness of this region.

12. Once the smoke travels lower down your throat it causes irritation and in some people the need to cough. According to experts the formaldehyde and acrolein abundantly present in cigarettes are primary reasons for throat irritation smokers experience. 

13. Apart from that cigarette smoke also causes changes in one’s voice. Commonly seen as hoarseness of the voice, it is mainly because of the effect the chemicals have on the vocal chords. Another reason for this is the constant clearing of one’s throat, commonly seen in smokers.

14. Smoking can also cause throat cancer. This is because the constant irritation of the lining of the throat combined with the erosion and damage of the cells lining the throat leads to a change in the way the cells form and regenerate.


When it enters your trachea or wind pipe:
15. Trachea is the pipe that leads to your lungs. It is lined with tiny hair like processes (called cilia) that help throw out any foreign objects. These cilia get damaged by the smoke of cigarettes and tend to function less optimally. It also leads to itchiness in the trachea leading to what is called the smoker’s cough.

16. Smoking can also lead to irritation of the larynx and laryngitis (infection of the larynx)

It also affects your oesophagus:
17. Smoking affects your food pipe as well. The chemicals and heat from the smoke tend to affect your oesophageal sphincter muscle. This is the muscle responsible for keeping the contents and acids in your stomach from rising back up into your throat. The weakening of this muscle is one of the main reasons for GERD (Gastro oesophageal reflux disease), acidity, ulcers and other stomach ailments.  

When it enters your bronchus and alveoli:
18. This where the cigarette smoke does the most damage, that is slow, progressive and deadly. Cigarette smoke attacks the cleaning mechanism of the respiratory system that is guided by cilia and mucous. The cilia moves the mucous that has trapped foreign object like dust, bacteria etc and throws it out of the body. In a smoker these cilia tend to get paralysed and eventually die. Smoking also causes an increase in the amount of mucous produced, and since the cilia can no more function and throw out the mucous, a person develops a smoker’s cough. 

19. Apart from that the cells along the bronchioles get damaged and tend to multiply abnormally. These cells cause the hardening of the outer surface of the bronchioles and leads to lesser ability to exchange gas with the microscopic air sacs (called alveoli) present around them. Eventually these air sacs burst and lead to what is known as emphysema. A common condition seen in long-term smokers. 

20. Smoking also leads to a buildup of tar within the bronchioles. This coupled with the thickening of its walls leads to breathlessness, wheezing, fatigue and in some cases dizziness.

21. Cigarette smoke also contains carbon monoxide. This is a potentially lethal gas since it attaches to the iron part of your blood and does not allow it to carry oxygen to other organs. Inhaling too much of this gas can kill you. In cigarette smoke carbon monoxide leads to lack of oxygen in the body, which eventually effects all your organs. It not only sets off the roller coaster of events leading to cancer it also starts the process of eventual decay of your organs — starting from your mouth to your brain, kidneys, liver, digestive system and blood. 

If all you can think about is how you have tried to quit but failed? Here is some research on why you tend to lose motivation and why smoking is now easier than ever. 

When you exhale:
22. When you exhale the entire process is repeated and all the chemical, smoke, tar etc deposited along your airway is doubled.

23. Apart from all the damage it causes on your body, smoking also leads to various other problems like cardiovascular disease due to plaque formation, constriction of blood vessels leading to vascular disorders.

24. Smoking also causes loss of bone density leading to conditions like osteoarthritis, loss of teeth and joint paints. 

25. It also affects your skin by reducing the effects of antioxidants in your body by releasing free radicals, depleting collagen below your skin and causing wrinkles, edema and stains your fingers and nails. 
So, the next time you light up that cigarette, think about what your body goes through to support your habit.

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.    
 
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Simple smell test can help identify those at Alzheimer’s risk

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in the US have developed a method to identify those at risk for Alzheimer’s disease on the basis of their ability to recognise and recall odours.

The non-invasive protocol testing the ability to recognise, remember and distinguish between odours was able to identify older individuals who -- according to genetic, imaging and more detailed memory tests -- were at increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, the study said.

“There is increasing evidence that the neurodegeneration behind Alzheimer’s disease starts at least 10 years before the onset of memory symptoms,” said principal investigator Mark Albers of the MGH Department of Neurology. 

“The development of a digitally-enabled, affordable, accessible and non-invasive means to identify healthy individuals who are at risk is a critical step to developing therapies that slow down or halt Alzheimer’s disease progression,” Albers noted.

It is well known that brain circuits that process olfactory information can be affected by Alzheimer’s disease, and several studies have documented a diminished ability to identify odours in affected individuals. 

The study recruited 183 participants, most of whom were enrolled in ongoing studies at the MGH-based Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. 

At the time of the olfactory testing, 70 were cognitively normal, 74 tested normal on cognitive tests but were personally concerned about their cognitive abilities, 29 had mild cognitive impairment and 10 had been diagnosed with possible or probable Alzheimer’s disease. 

Results of the test significantly differentiated among the four groups of participants, and those results correlated with the thinning of two brain regions -- the hippocampus and the entorhinal cortex -- previously associated with Alzheimer’s risk. 

The researchers also found that participants’ ability to remember a previously presented aroma also showed significant differences between the two cognitively normal groups and participants with Alzheimer’s disease, whose results were no better than chance.
Poor performers in the memory test were more likely to have the variant of the APOE gene associated with increased Alzheimer’s risk, said the study published online in the journal Annals of Neurology.

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Smell may shape human memories

Scents and smells can form the basis of some of the most significant memories humans form in their lives, a new study suggests.

The discovery may provide a means to detect early problems with memory formation and memory retrieval in the brain, researchers said.

An international team led by University of Queensland has boosted understanding of the smell-memory connection, showing that olfactory memory in honeybees regulates receptors in their antennae.

Bees' antennae function like a human nose, said Queensland Brain Institute scientists Dr Judith Reinhard and Associate Professor Charles Claudianos.

"French novelist Marcel Proust in his novel Remembrance of Things Past (also known as In Search of Lost Time) described how his childhood memories started to flow when he tasted a madeleine cake dipped in linden tea, as he had been given as a child," Reinhard said.

"Our team found that odour memories trigger recall of associated events, and that long-term odour memory formation in the brain regulates the sense of smell in the 'nose' via regulating the receptor molecules," Reinhard said.

"Preferences for different foods and beverages are linked to our sense of smell, and our research shows that long-term scent memories modify how odours are perceived," said Reinhard.

"In a nutshell: our smell experiences shape our preferences," she added.

"The study demonstrates for the first time that the ability to smell different things is experience-dependent and modulated by scent conditioning," said Reinhard.

Claudianos said the findings could help explain the wide variability of smell perception in humans and the neurological mechanism underlying the common phenomenon of "acquired taste", where repeated sensory experience with a flavour or aroma leads to perceptual changes.

"This knowledge will provide an enormous insight for understanding food and aroma perception," he said.

"The discovery may also provide a means to detect early problems with memory formation and memory retrieval in the brain," said Claudianos.

Individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia or neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease often have an altered sense of smell perception, researchers said.

The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

SUMMARYDiscovery may provide a means to detect early problems with memory formation, memory retrieval in brain.

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How brain distinguishes one scent from another

Researchers have used the fruit fly to find out how the brain integrates multiple signals to identify one unique smell.

A team has described how a group of neurons in the fruit fly brain recognize multiple individual chemicals in combination in order to define, or remember, a single scent.

The olfactory system of a fruit fly begins at the equivalent of our nose, where a series of neurons sense and respond to very specific chemicals.

These neurons pass their signal on to a group of cells called projection neurons. Then the signal undergoes a transformation as it is passed to a body of neurons in the fly brain called Kenyon cells.

Kenyon cells have multiple, extremely long protrusions that grasp the projection neurons with a claw-like structure. Each Kenyon cell claw is wrapped tightly around only one projection neuron, meaning that it receives a signal from just one type of input.

In addition to their unique structure, Kenyon cells are also remarkable for their selectivity. Because they’re selective, they aren’t often activated. Yet little is known about what in fact makes them decide to fire a signal.

The team used cutting-edge microscopy to explore the chemical response profile for multiple claws on one Kenyon cell.

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Anxiety makes the world smell worse !

Anxiety stinks! Stress may not only make you smell bad, but also the world around you, a new study suggests.

The study shows that when people are anxious, smells they once found neutral become distasteful.

Scientists using powerful new brain imaging technologies have revealed how anxiety or stress can rewire the brain, linking centres of emotion and olfactory processing, to make typically benign smells malodorous.

Researchers said that, the brains of human subjects experience anxiety induced by

disturbing pictures and text of things like car crashes and war transform neutral odours to distasteful ones, fuelling a feedback loop that could heighten distress and lead to clinical issues like anxiety and depression.

The finding is important because it may help scientists understand the dynamic nature of smell perception and the biology of anxiety as the brain rewires itself under stressful circumstances and reinforces negative sensations and feelings.

"After anxiety induction, neutral smells become clearly negative," said a researcher.

"People experiencing an increase in anxiety show a decrease in the perceived pleasantness of odours. It becomes more negative as anxiety increases," she said.

Using behavioural techniques and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI),the group looked at the brains of a dozen human subjects with induced anxiety as they processed known neutral odours.

Functional MRI is a technology that enables clinicians and researchers to observe the working brain in action.

In the course of the experiment, researchers observed that two distinct and typically independent circuits of the brain- one dedicated to olfactory processing, the other to emotion- become intimately intertwined under conditions of anxiety.

Subsequent to anxiety induction and the imaging process, subjects were asked again to rate the panel of neutral smells, most assigning negative responses to smells they previously rated as neutral.

"In typical odour processing, it is usually just the olfactory system that gets activated. But when a person becomes anxious, the emotional system becomes part of the olfactory processing stream," she said.

Although those two systems of the brain are right next to each other, under normal circumstances there is limited crosstalk between the two.

However, under conditions of induced anxiety, the Wisconsin team observed the emergence of a unified network cutting across the two systems.

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