Smoking may seem quite simple. Just grab a cigarette out from your pack, put it to your mouth, light it up, and inhale. However, what’s happening during the combustion process in your cigarette is anything but simple. In fact, it’s taken us ages to begin to understand the effects of smoke on our bodies. Even now, we don’t fully understand its complexities. Every time we light up a cigarette, we introduce over 7,000 chemicals into our body. These include carcinogens, such as benzene, formaldehyde, and vinyl chloride; toxic heavy metals, such as arsenic, and cadmium; and even poisons such as ammonia, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen cyanide.
With this staggering number of foreign chemicals and toxins entering the body, it’s no surprise that smoking has a litany of negative health effects. One of the areas of concern is the effects of smoke on allergies. Allergists, such as Dr. Summit Shah provide additional insight into these allergy related issues. Here are some of the ways that quitting smoking can help your allergies.
Your Body Returns To A Healthy, More Natural State
Introducing over 7,000 chemicals into your body on a daily basis impedes our body’s ability to regulate itself. It complicates everything that your body already has to do. When we are suffering from allergies, we need to allow our body to undergo its natural cleansing process. The influx of thousands of chemicals only exacerbates the situation. Dr. Summit Shah, along with many of the country’s leading allergists, promote the importance of the body’s ability to self-regulate and heal naturally. Each chemical affects the body. With the innumerable chemical compounds released in the burning of tobacco, we can expect just as many reactions within the body to combat these harmful chemicals. Quitting smoking eliminates this distress in the immune system.
Quitting Smoking Reduces Inflammation
It is well known that smoke of all kinds leads to inflammation in the body. In particular, cigarette smoke causes inflammation in the body’s vital airways, leading to the lungs. As the inflammation progresses, immune cells are generated and sent to the distressed area. This process releases histamines, which are a common cause of allergic reactions. Inflammation is truly a nightmare for the body, so reducing inflammation in any way possible is always a good course of action. Quitting smoking takes all of this out of the equation, and allows the body to avoid unnecessary inflammatory issues.
Ridding The Body Of Cigarette Allergies
In many people, consistent cigarette smoking can lead to a type of “cigarette allergy,” as well as atopy, hypersensitivity to allergens. These are caused by an immune reaction in the body, generated as a response to harmful substances. This is an issue that compounds over time, making the smoker highly sensitive to the chemicals found in cigarettes. Symptoms of cigarette allergies can be limited to minor issues such as a runny nose, sneezing; or they may cause more serious problems such as asthma, dyspnea, or heavy coughing. By quitting, we eliminate the need for the body to produce this immune response.
There is no shortage of reasons to quit smoking. Modern medical science continues to give us reasons why we should drop this bad habit. Allergies are bad enough, and so many people suffer from this affliction. Smoking only makes matters worse and complicates it even beyond our current understanding. When experiencing allergy-related issues, it’s always best to try to limit external irritants, whatever they may be. If you are a smoker, eliminating smoking and all of the issues it creates is a great start.
