How are men affected by smoking?

History of Smoking

Tobacco smoking is one of the most ancient, globally prevalent, and enduring practices in the history of substance abuse. Historians have found evidence of the activity dating to 500 bce. In the annals of European and Western cultures, smoking has been a long established habit of boys and men especially. Not until the invention and swift proliferation of the cigarette at the turn of the twentieth century did tobacco smoking became prevalent among both men and women.

The practice of tobacco smoking has been perceived in many ways, including as religious custom and potential health benefit to herbal remedy, relaxant, and energy booster. Only relatively recently has medical evidence shown the dangers of tobacco smoking. This has led to monumental cultural changes that have placed restrictions on a practice that was an epidemic in American culture for more than a century.

It is now widely known and accepted that tobacco smoking causes damage to nearly every system of the body. Investigations into the numerous and varied health hazards of tobacco smoking have yielded evidence that illustrates how the practice affects men and women differently.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 443,000 Americans die each year from smoking-related conditions and from the effects of secondhand smoke. This figure represents more fatalities than are caused by illegal drugs, alcohol, motor vehicle accidents, human immunodeficiency virus infection, suicides, and homicides combined. CDC data also indicate that smoking triples the risk of heart disease in middle-aged men and increases the risk of acquiring lung cancer more than twenty-two times that of nonsmokers.

Statistics from the American Lung Association (ALA) indicate that smoking among men decreased 11 percent between the years 1965 and 2009. ALA figures also indicate that more than 25 million American men still smoke, a number that represents 25.3 percent of the adult male population of the United States.

Smoking: Introduction and Prevalence

Research shows that men and women start smoking for different reasons. Even though smoking has been an acceptable behavior for both adult men and women in the United States for decades, the ritual is, because of cultural beliefs, societal attitudes, popular media, and advertising, still associated with masculinity and machismo. This is perhaps the underlying cause of the tendency of men to experiment with or start smoking in their teenage years: They attempt to model or construct a masculine image.

Research indicates that men begin smoking at an average age of sixteen years, whereas women do not usually start until the age of nineteen years. As with any experimentation with potentially abusive substances, peer pressure is a major reason boys and young men begin smoking in their teenage years. Many male youths do not want to appear averse to risk-taking, which can result in smoking for social support and affirmation. The acceptance and camaraderie young smokers receive from other young smokers can be more rewarding than tobacco itself. The process of obtaining and learning to use tobacco also can be construed as a risky and therefore thrilling prospect to many teenage boys.

Parental, familial, and communal influences also affect a boy’s decision to begin smoking at a young age. Children whose parents smoke grow up to presume that the practice is acceptable if adult behavior; children of smokers also grow up to suffer negative effects from early exposure to secondhand smoke. Newer research on substance abuse also has revealed that nicotine addiction may be linked to genetic disposition. Having parents who smoke also can make boys erroneously skeptical of cultural attitudes, advertising, and public health information that tries to warn youths of the dangers of smoking.

Short-term Health Dangers

The long-term effects of tobacco smoking are widely known. However, tobacco smoking also causes an array of immediate psychological and health effects, even with occasional or sporadic use. Many of these effects, which occur in both men and women, include increased stress levels from cellular manipulation to dopamine receptors. Abnormal tightening of airways results in shortness of breath and increased phlegm production that result in persistent bouts of coughing. All of these factors combine to decrease overall physical performance and well-being.

The damage a single cigarette or exposure to secondhand smoke causes to the cardiovascular system is also significant. Smoking dilates blood vessels, resulting in a reduction of blood supply throughout the body. In addition to an increased heart rate while ingesting smoke, smokers also have a higher resting heartbeat than do nonsmokers.

Smoking also can cause negative effects to a person’s teeth, stomach, and digestive system. Changes in blood supply slow immune responses responsible for preventing periodontal infection. Excess mucous production in the lungs and stomach, a result of the body’s attempt to cast out harmful toxins from smoke, also can lead to gastroesophageal reflux disease and peptic ulcers. Tobacco smoking also interferes with the body’s absorption of key minerals, enzymes, and micronutrients such as vitamins A, C, and E, all of which are necessary to maintain health.

Long-term Health Dangers

The body’s short-term reaction to tobacco smoking and the litany of health complications surrounding even occasional exposure to or use of tobacco persist in habitual smokers. What results is a constant struggle by the body to return to a nonsmoking state, a struggle made more difficult because of the numerous degenerative effects of the toxins found in tobacco smoke.

In men, the restriction of blood vessels resulting from long-term use of or exposure to tobacco smoke can result in erectile dysfunction, sperm damage, and impotence. Newer evidence also suggests that long-term exposure to the toxic chemicals in tobacco smoke can result in genetic mutations to the sperm that increase the risk of birth defects and cancer in the future children of smokers.

While lung cancer and emphysema are the most widely known potentially fatal diseases associated with smoking, heart disease remains the leading cause of death among smokers in the United States. Furthermore, estimates predict that more than one billion people will die from tobacco use in the twenty-first century.

The widespread legislative and cultural changes in developed countries such as the United States have made the dangers of smoking more evident than any previous time. The new health campaigns and changing cultural attitudes toward tobacco smoking are perhaps the biggest reason that the percentage of male smokers older than age eighteen years in the United States has gone from 52 percent in 1965 to just 26 percent in 1999, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The tobacco epidemic, however, will continue to take its toll in such nations as China, where the health risks are less known and smoking remains a widely accepted practice among men. WHO estimates that more than 300 million Chinese men are smokers, a number of people equal to the entire population of the United States.

Bibliography

American Lung Association. “Trends in Tobacco Use.” Jul. 2011. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. http://www.lung.org/finding-cures/our-research/trend-reports/Tobacco-Trend-Report.pdf.

Gately, Iain. Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization. New York: Grove, 2003.

Herrick, Charles. 100 Questions and Answers about How to Quit Smoking. Sudbury, MA: Jones, 2009.

Rabinoff, Michael. Ending the Tobacco Holocaust. Fulton: Elite, 2010.

“Smoking’s Immediate Effects on the Body.” 17 Sep. 2009. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0264.pdf.

Zang, Edith A., and Ernst L. Wynder. “Difference in Lung Cancer Risk Between Men and Women: Examination of the Evidence.” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 88 (1996). Web. 30 Apr. 2012. http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/88/3-4/183.abstract.