A white paper covering a cigarette stick looks harmless until one wishes to light it up. It's actually one's wish that releases a dangerous cocktail of over five thousand chemicals in his body. It's this person who lets nicotine to stimulate the pleasure-centres of brain. Has s/he ever thought how much damage s/he actually is causing to himself or herself just to get this brief stimulation?
Yes, this is about the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes. Every puff of cigarette causes damage to people around the smoker. Every time one buys a cigarette, one is actually buying poison to kill oneself and one's beloved ones.
It has been proved beyond any shadow of doubt that smoking is the number one cause of preventable diseases and deaths in the world. It is one of the risk factors of almost all non-communicable diseases like diabetes, cancer, heart diseases and COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
For people with diabetes or at high risk of developing the disease, cigarette smoking can contribute to serious health complications. In Bangladesh, 11 per cent women and men are diabetic and more than 25 per cent people are in pre-diabetic stage. Altogether nearly 35 per cent of our people are either diabetic or going to have it while many of them do not have the financial strength of taking timely treatment. Either in active or passive way, smoking is damaging their health and causing financial burden to their families. Let's see how smoking can bring misery to diabetic patients.
Studies reported that smokers with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are at increased risk of illness and premature death. Beside these, the risk of complications of a diabetic patient, who is a smoker, is nearly 14 times higher than the risk of either smoking or diabetes alone! Researchers have already found that diabetic patients who smoke have higher blood sugar levels, making their disease more difficult to control and they have greater risk of developing complications such as blindness, nerve damage, kidney failure and heart problems. There is also evidence that exposure to second-hand smoking has a close link with the risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Smoking raises the risk of pancreatic cancer in patients with diabetes mellitus and there are data that a combined risk of family history of pancreatic cancer, current smoking and current diabetes mellitus confer a 10-fold increase in risk of being diagnosed as a cancer patient.
Smoking is associated with multiple complications of diabetes. Nephropathy (kidney disease) has been shown to be common in Type 1 diabetic patients who smoke. A limited study on 33 people with Type 2 diabetes with kidney disease in Australia found that smokers' kidney function declined more rapidly than the non-smokers, despite drug treatment. It suggested that giving up smoking could slow the progression of kidney disease in people with diabetes.
The relationship between cigarette smoking and retinopathy (disorders of the retina) is still uncovered. However, some studies have found an association between smoking and diabetic retinopathy. Smoking is also a documented risk factor for both development and progression of various types of neuropathy (damage to the peripheral nervous system).
The latest Diabetes Atlas estimates that there are 382 million people living with diabetes worldwide. By 2035, an estimated 592 million people or one person in ten will have the disease. A further 316 million people are currently at high risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, with the number expected to increase to almost 500 million within a generation.
According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey 2011, 43.3 per cent adults of Bangladesh currently use tobacco in smoke or smokeless form, which is very alarming. The scenario will get worse if the diabetic patients continue smoking. Now this is high time to be aware of the harmful effects of the disease.
No cigarette will catch fire until one lights it up. So, the choice is of the person concerned.
The writer is Senior Assistant Coordinator, Eminence. tania@eminence-bd.org