Did You Know Smoking Is Bad For Your Bones?
21/05/11 08:36
According to the most recent statistics from American Lung Association and the Center for Disease Control (CDC), over 430,000 people die each year as a result of smoking-related diseases. According to the American Lung Association, cigarette smoking leads to 87% of lung cancers, emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
Smoking is known to cause:
• Heart disease
• Lung cancer
• Esophageal cancer
• Chronic lung disease
But there is one more thing: smoking is also bad for your bones!
Bones, like other tissues and organs of your body, get their nutrition from good blood flow. Normally, when a bone is injured (i.e. fractured), blood flow brings in the desperately needed nutrients to help heal the bone. Smokers tend to have an elevated level of nicotine in their blood, which constricts blood vessels. This leads to decreased blood flow, resulting in impaired delivery of oxygen and other nutrients.
Thus, when the bone of a smoker is injured, healing is compromised.
With the impaired nutrition to the bones, bone density becomes affected and this can also lead to osteoporosis.
Low Back Pain and Smoking
If you are a smoker and suffer from low back pain, you are not alone. The idea that smoking may be linked with low back pain has been around for quite some time. The key culprit here is nicotine, which limits blood flow throughout the body, including the spine. Chronic oxygen deprivation causes the discs to weaken. The result is malnourished and degenerated discs, which lead to pain. As a chronic smoker, the more you cough, the more you irritate the discs, which results in more low back pain.
If you are considering a fusion surgery, your doctor will ask you if you smoke. This is important because nicotine damages the “bone building cells”. In extreme cases, a surgeon may refuse to operate if the patient is a chronic smoker, since smoking slows down healing after spinal surgery.
Smoking is known to cause:
• Heart disease
• Lung cancer
• Esophageal cancer
• Chronic lung disease
But there is one more thing: smoking is also bad for your bones!
Bones, like other tissues and organs of your body, get their nutrition from good blood flow. Normally, when a bone is injured (i.e. fractured), blood flow brings in the desperately needed nutrients to help heal the bone. Smokers tend to have an elevated level of nicotine in their blood, which constricts blood vessels. This leads to decreased blood flow, resulting in impaired delivery of oxygen and other nutrients.
Thus, when the bone of a smoker is injured, healing is compromised.
With the impaired nutrition to the bones, bone density becomes affected and this can also lead to osteoporosis.
Low Back Pain and Smoking
If you are a smoker and suffer from low back pain, you are not alone. The idea that smoking may be linked with low back pain has been around for quite some time. The key culprit here is nicotine, which limits blood flow throughout the body, including the spine. Chronic oxygen deprivation causes the discs to weaken. The result is malnourished and degenerated discs, which lead to pain. As a chronic smoker, the more you cough, the more you irritate the discs, which results in more low back pain.
If you are considering a fusion surgery, your doctor will ask you if you smoke. This is important because nicotine damages the “bone building cells”. In extreme cases, a surgeon may refuse to operate if the patient is a chronic smoker, since smoking slows down healing after spinal surgery.
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