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You posted this on another thread and apparently I missed it.
Cigarettes
What happens to my body as I inhale cigarette smoke?
When you inhale cigarette smoke, your lungs are punished with tar and many gases, including carbon monoxide. Nicotine, found in tobacco, affects your central nervous system as a **stimulant.** Once nicotine is taken into the body, blood sugar rises slightly, giving you increased energy that will soon subside and leave you fatigued and perhaps depressed, fueling the craving for more nicotine. As a vasoconstrictor, nicotine tightens blood vessels and restricts blood flow, causing permanent damage to arteries in the long run. Because both male and female orgasms depend on blood flow, nicotine can affect your sex life.
It only takes seconds for nicotine to reach the brain, but its effects can last for an entire day. Unfortunately, corticosterone, the stress hormone, reduces nicotine’s effectiveness. This means that if you’re stressed you will use more nicotine to feel an impact. As you can imagine, the more you smoke, the higher your tolerance for nicotine, and the more dependent you become on the drug. When forced to go for a long period without smoking you will probably feel irritated and more aggressive. ***In addition, whether you notice or not, your cognitive functioning will most likely be impaired.***
*** that happens when a smoker goes without smoking so the other side is smoking makes your cognitive functioning sharper.
What are the short-term and long-term health risks of smoking?
Short-term:
•Stained nails and teeth
•Bad breath
•Wrinkled, aged skin
Long-term:
•Lung cancer
•Emphysema
•Heart disease
•Earlier menopause in women
•Death
http://www.princeton.edu/uhs/healthy-living/hot-topics/drugs-and-smoking/
** That is incorrect, nicotine has a transquilizer effect, plus tobacco also has a sedative, our body takes what it needs out of tobacco at any given moment, when you're upset, it takes the sedative, when you're down, it takes the stimulant.
I don't know what the average age for women going through menopause is but my wife started when she was around 52 which I would think probably is higher than normal and she smokes, maybe having an active sex life helps delay it.