Health Effects - Smoking is dangerous

Smoking is one of the biggest causes of death and illness in the UK.

Every year around 100,000 people die from smoking, with many more deaths caused by smoking-related illnesses.

Smoking increases your risk of developing more than 50 serious health conditions. Some may be fatal and others can cause irreversible long-term damage to your health.

You can become ill:

• if you smoke yourself
• through other people's smoke (passive smoking, or secondhand smoke) 

Health risks

Smoking causes about 90% of lung cancers. It also causes cancer in many other parts of the body, including the:

• mouth
• lips
• throat
• voice box (larynx)
• oesophagus (the tube between your mouth and stomach)
• bladder
• kidney
• liver
• stomach
• pancreas

Smoking damages your heart and your blood circulation, increasing your risk of developing conditions such as:

• coronary heart disease 
• heart attack
• stroke
• peripheral vascular disease (damaged blood vessels)
• cerebrovascular disease (damaged arteries that supply blood to your brain)

Smoking also damages your lungs, leading to conditions such as:

• chronic bronchitis (infection of the main airways in the lungs)
• emphysema (damage to the small airways in the lungs)
• pneumonia (inflammation in the lungs)

Smoking can also worsen or prolong the symptoms of respiratory conditions such as asthma, or respiratory tract infections such as the common cold.

In men, smoking can cause impotence because it limits the blood supply to the penis. It can also affect the fertility of both men and women, making it difficult for you to have children.

Secondhand smoke

Secondhand smoke comes from the tip of a lit cigarette and the smoke that the smoker breathes out.

People who breathe in secondhand smoke are at risk of getting the same health conditions as smokers, particularly lung cancer and heart disease. For example, breathing in secondhand smoke increases a non-smoker's risk of developing lung cancer or heart disease by about 25%.

Babies and children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of secondhand smoke. A child who is exposed to smoke is at increased risk of developing respiratory infections, a chronic cough and, if they have asthma, their symptoms will get worse. They're also at increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and glue ear.

Smoking during pregnancy

If you smoke when you're pregnant, you put your unborn baby's health at risk, as well as your own. Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of complications such as:

• miscarriage 
• premature (early) birth
• a low birth weight baby
• stillbirth 

 

Why smoke one cigarette when you can smoke the pack at once, 1950's

A Modern Day Solution To Stress - Punch Me Panda

I knew people were angry. I knew people want to punch things, because I want to punch things, that is how Nate Hill, 33, explains his crazy idea of dressing up as a panda and encouraging passers-by to hit him.

Believe it or not, Hill actually thought of becoming a human punching bag as a community service. He’ll just visit busy thoroughfares, businesses expecting layoffs and he’ll even make house calls, and have people punch him to lighten their day. No matter how big your problem is, a few punches and a shoulder charge will make anybody feel a lot better.

At first, everyone thought he was just part of some advertising campaign, others just didn’t understand why he was asking them to hit him, but as soon as one person starts to hit him, all of them become intrigued and want to show off their own boxing skills. Whether their dealing with relationship issues, work-related stress or just boredom, hitting a panda makes all their faces glow.

When he’s not wearing his funny panda suit, Nate Hill works in a laboratory,m where he cares for fruit flies used in experiments. You might not guess by looking at him, but this man is a veteran when it comes to helping Americans deal with their anger. So far he also has dressed up as Death Bear, and Mr Dropout, two fictional characters imagined by Nate himself, as a way of relieving some of the pain on the street.

Although he uses a breastplate and cushion to protect himself against the flurry of blows he receives every day, the man behind Punch Me Panda admits people sometimes cross the line and him in the face. The panda head offers little protection, so he just takes it off, so the person hitting him knows they have to stop. Most of them offer apologies, and Nate always accepts them.

So if you feel the need to hit someone, remember to call Punch Me Panda Nate Hill. You can probably find him wondering the streets of New York, but you can contact him on his official website, as well.

 

 

 

 

photos via MyModernMet

Punch Me Panda was originally posted at OddityCentral