Nicotine is not carcinogenic at all?

"Stop smoking, doesn't your father's previous experience sober you up!" Grandma Wang was so angry and shaky that she almost fainted.

"Nicotine is not carcinogenic, and you're listening to nonsense, so what's wrong with me smoking?" Xiaowei retorted.

Xiaowei's father died of lung cancer earlier in life, and the doctor said it was caused by long-term smoking, which Grandma Wang took to heart and has been scornful and disgusted by tobacco ever since.

But a few months ago, she discovered that her grandson had also taken up the habit of smoking. Grandma Wang was afraid that her grandson and her son would suffer from lung cancer from smoking, so she often advised him to quit, and said that Xiaowei was very resistant to it, so they had many arguments. Wang's grandmother can do nothing, but also does not want to let it go, to their gas out of a disease.

In the last few days, Wang's grandmother found Xiaowei's frequent cough, and not like a cold, she suspected Xiaowei's lungs were bad, so again persuade him to quit smoking, and then go to the hospital for examination, but the argument was refuted by Xiaowei.

Nicotine is not carcinogenic, is it true? Does smoking have any effect on health?

I. Question: Is nicotine a carcinogen or not?

Perhaps in the perception of many people, nicotine is a flood of beasts and is the culprit of tobacco cancer, and even many doctors support the view.

Rutgers University in New Jersey, the United States has conducted a national survey, a survey of 1020 doctors deep in oncology, cardiology, and other six major medical fields of research, the results found that of the participating doctors, 80% agree that nicotine causes cancer, 81% agree that nicotine is the cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 83% agree that nicotine causes heart disease.

Even many doctors believe that nicotine causes cancer, is nicotine a carcinogen or not?

Unlike the public and some professionals, the World Health Organization has never included nicotine in the list of carcinogens, which means that nicotine is not the cause of tobacco cancer, but this does not mean that nicotine is not harmful to humans.

Nicotine, also known as nicotine, is a bitter and unpleasant oily liquid alkaloid. Although nicotine is not directly carcinogenic, its addictive nature increases the chances of human exposure to carcinogens, and there is a risk of poisoning when consumed in large quantities over a long period.

When tobacco burns, it is inhaled into the lungs with the smoke, and within 7 seconds it crosses the blood-brain barrier into the brain, activating the brain's neurological reward mechanism and producing a brief euphoria. It does not lose its effect until the onset of its half-life in 2 hours.

As the nicotine concentration decreases, the smoker may become anxious, restless, intolerant, and have difficulty concentrating, which can only be relieved by smoking again. 1-2 times, the person becomes obsessed with this feeling and becomes dependent, or "addicted".

Nicotine is extremely addictive, so many smokers have trouble getting rid of their tobacco dependence. Nicotine is also a highly toxic substance, a cigarette containing nicotine extract can kill a mouse, and the average lethal dose for mice is about 3.3mg/kg.

Theoretically, the human body for a short period to ingest enough nicotine, may also be lethal. Even people often say that "undead little strong" - cockroaches, in the consumption of tobacco soaking water, will also die, so the poison of nicotine can not be underestimated.

Second, nicotine does not cause cancer, smoking is harmful to health is wrong?

See here, many people may want to ask, since nicotine is not carcinogenic, so does it mean that smoking is harmful theory is "nonsense", we can smoke freely.

First of all, smoking certainly is one of the high-risk factors for lung cancer! The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) found that China ranked first among all malignant tumors in terms of new lung cancer cases in 2020, with 820,000 patients. Lung cancer mortality also ranked first in the same year, with 710,000 deaths.

Clinically, the 5-year survival rate of advanced lung cancer is only 10-15%. The main cause of the high incidence of lung cancer is smoking, which is listed as one of the top 7 lung cancer risk factors in the 2020 edition of the NCCN Lung Cancer Screening Guidelines Interpretation.

A characterization mapping of gene mutations induced by 41 of 79 classes of suspected and known carcinogens and environmental conditions was published in the leading medical journal Cell by researchers from King's College London and the University of Cambridge.

The results showed that 53-70% of the CC bases in the benzo(a)pyrene-induced mutation process became mutated to AA, which indicates that benzo(a)pyrene in tobacco is one of the important carcinogens.

Second, tobacco burning will release more than 7000 compounds, of which carbon monoxide, volatile nitrosamines, hydrogen cyanide, and other gases account for 95%, nicotine, tar, and other non-volatile or semi-volatile particles account for 5%, the real carcinogenic is formaldehyde, nitrosamines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and other known 69 carcinogens.

In the process of smoking, smoke can cause damage to the skin, eyes, mouth, digestive tract (throat, gastrointestinal), reproductive organs, lungs, etc. It may cause periodontal disease, heart disease, lung disease, stroke, premature birth, infertility, birth defects, etc.

Therefore, please keep in mind that there is no scientific basis for the "harmless theory" of smoking.

Third, why do some people get lung cancer even if they don't smoke?

We all know that smoking is harmful to our bodies, but some people take a chance and look at the problem from the perspective of survivorship bias, thinking that some people live a long life even though they smoke, while some people die of lung cancer even though they never smoke. Why do non-smokers get stuck with lung cancer?

Smoking is one of the high-risk factors for lung cancer, but it is not the only factor. First of all, some people may not smoke, but we cannot rule out the possibility of lung cancer from long-term inhalation of second-hand smoke or third-hand smoke because there are more smokers around.

Medical studies have found that passive smokers such as second-hand and third-hand smokers often suffer more harm than the smokers themselves.

Second, long-term living in a poor air environment, such as serious haze, dust, long-term exposure to oil smoke, etc., these haze or dust, long-term inhalation will also produce damage to the lungs, especially oil smoke.

Oil smoke contains a lot of heterocyclic amines, benzopyrene, nitrosamines, and other carcinogens.

Finally, some people are born into lung cancer families and have a high risk of developing lung cancer by birth. If they are exposed to carcinogenic substances later in life, they are more likely to develop cancer than ordinary people.

In addition, long-term exposure to carcinogenic substances such as radon gas, asbestos, silica, nickel, arsenic, and diesel exhaust may also cause lung cancer.

Is it true or false that suddenly quitting smoking "kills people"?

In life, I often hear people say that smoking all year round is not abnormal, but after quitting smoking is uncomfortable, sudden quitting will be sudden death, what is going on?

Some long-term smokers, usually seem to be fine, but when they quit smoking will appear weakness, coughing, anxiety, irritability, insomnia, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, rapid heart rate, and other symptoms, it seems that "quit smoking quit sick", which has nothing to do with quitting smoking, but withdrawal syndrome.

Withdrawal syndrome usually appears within a few hours after quitting smoking, the longer you smoke, the more addicted you are to smoking, the earlier it appears, and the symptoms will peak after you quit smoking for 1-3 days, and can last up to 1-3 months.

The root cause of the withdrawal reaction is that the smoker's brain is stimulated by nicotine for a long time, and when the brain nicotine level decreases, the brain nerves become maladaptive and dependent, creating a craving for nicotine, and the symptoms are triggered.

It is recommended that when quitting smoking it is best to consult a hospital smoking cessation clinic and quit safely under the guidance of a doctor, or other medications can be used to relieve symptoms while quitting smoking can be distracted by exercise, music, food, etc. to increase the success rate of quitting.

The damage brought by tobacco to the human body is continuous and permanent, and there is no such thing as one or two is fine, there is no safe amount of smoking, any time you quit smoking will only bring more benefits to the human body, I hope that all smokers can quit smoking scientifically and rationally, get rid of the control of nicotine as soon as possible and resume a healthy life.