Cigarette Smoking IELTS Listening Reading Practice
Cigarette Smoking IELTS Listening Reading Practice
Lecturer, author or publisher: Krishna Sudhir on TED-Ed
Cigarette Smoking IELTS Reading Practice
Cigarette smoking
Cigarettes aren’t good for us. That’s hardly news. We’ve known about the dangers of smoking for decades. But how exactly do cigarettes harm us? Let’s look at what happens as their ingredients make their way through our bodies and how we benefit physically when we finally give up smoking.
How do cigarettes harm you?
With each inhalation, smoke brings in more than 5,000 chemical substances into contact with the body’s tissues. From the start, tar, a black resinous material, begins to coat the teeth and gums, damaging tooth enamel, and eventually, causing decay. Over time, smoke also damages nerve endings in the nose causing loss of smell. Inside the airways in lungs, smoke increases the likelihood of infections as well as chronic diseases like bronchitis and emphysema.
It does this by damaging the Cilia, tiny hair-like structures whose job it is to keep the airways clean. It then fills the alveoli, tiny air sacs that enable the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the lungs and blood. A toxic gas called, carbon monoxide, crosses the membrane into the blood binding to hemoglobin and displacing the oxygen it would usually have transported around the body. That’s one of the reasons smoking can lead to oxygen deprivation and shortness of breath.
Why is smoking so addictive?
Within about 10 seconds, the bloodstream carries a stimulant, called nicotine, to the brain, triggering the release of dopamine and other neurotransmitters, including endorphins that crave the pleasurable sensations which make smoking highly addictive. Nicotine and other chemicals from the cigarette simultaneously cause constriction of blood vessels and damage their delicate endothelial lining, restricting blood flow. These vascular effects lead to thickening of blood vessel walls and enhance blood platelet stickiness, increasing the likelihood that clots will form and trigger heart attacks and strokes.
Many of the chemicals inside cigarettes can trigger dangerous mutations in the body’s DNA that make cancers form. Additionally, ingredients like arsenic and nickel may disrupt the process of DNA repair, thus compromising the body’s ability to fight many cancers. In fact, about one of every three cancer deaths in the United States is caused by smoking, and it’s not just lung cancer. Smoking can cause cancer in multiple tissues and organs as well as damage eyesight and weakened bones. it makes it harder for women to get pregnant and, in men, it can cause erectile dysfunction.
But for those who quit smoking, there’s a huge positive outside with almost immediate and long-lasting physical benefits. Just 20 minutes after a smoker’s final cigarette, their heart rate and blood pressure begin to return to normal. After 12 hours, carbon monoxide levels stabilize, increasing the blood’s oxygen-carrying capacity. A day after ceasing, heart attack risk begins to decrease as blood pressure and heart rates normalize. After 2 days, the nerve endings responsible for smell and taste start to recover.
Lungs become healthier after about 1 month with less coughing and shortness of breath. The delicate hair-like cilia in the airways and lungs start recovering within weeks, and are restored after 9 months, improving resistance to infection. By the one-year anniversary of quitting, heart disease risk plummets to half as blood vessel function improves. Five years in, the chance of a clot forming dramatically declines of the risk of stroke continues to reduce. After 10 years, the chances of developing fatal lung cancer go down by 50%, probably because the body’s ability to repair DNA is once again restored. Fifteen years in, the likelihood of developing coronary heart disease is essentially the same as that of a non-smoker.
There’s no point pretending this is all easy to achieve. Quitting can lead to anxiety and depression, resulting from nicotine withdrawal, but fortunately, such effects are usually temporary, and quitting is getting easier, thanks to a growing arsenal of tools. Nicotine replacement therapy through gum, skin patches, lozenges, and sprays may help wean smokers off cigarettes. They work by stimulating nicotine receptors in the brain and thus preventing withdrawal symptoms, without the addition of other harmful chemicals. Counseling and support groups, cognitive behavioral therapy, and moderate intensity exercise also help smokers stay cigarette-free. That’s good news since quitting puts you and your body on the path back to health.
It is upsetting that despite being aware of all the consequences of smoking and cigarettes, the rate of smoking remains high.
In your comment, the subject should refer to the same entity. Your comment could be revised accordingly:
… despite being aware of all the consequences of smoking and cigarettes, people continue to smoke at a high rate.
7. What is the nicotine replacement therapy? how does it work?
That’s a decent question about quitting smoking. Thank you.
6. How does cigarette cause cancer?
Smoking cigarettes can cause some types of cancer, especially lung cancer. Additionally, cardiovascular diseases could be caused or aggravated by smoking.
5. How do nicotine cause heart attack and stroke?
That’s a technical question about the detrimental effects of smoking, namely strokes and heart attacks. We will discuss them in our next class.
4. What does cause oxygen deprivation and shortness of breath?
The form of your question looks weird. You don’t need to put so much emphasis on the causes of shortness of breath or oxygen deprivation. Simply, you could write: What are the underlying causes of oxygen deprivation and shortness of breath?
3. What is Cilia and what is its job?
Thank you Mohammad for making so many questions about this post on cigarette smoking.
2. What chemical causes decay smoker’s teeth and gums?
What chemical causes tooth decay in smokers?
Your revised comment is much clearer and more understandable about the decaying process of teeth due to smoking.
Great to see you’re analyzing your own comments, which is called self-assessment. It can optimally increase your awareness and attention in second language acquisition.
1. What happens to our body when we finally give up smoking?
You’re greatly looking on the bright side of quitting smoking no matter what. There are certainly a great deal of benefits awaiting the smokers provided that they stop smoking.