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Effects of Smoking

• You can get addicted to smoking.

• Each year, more than 100,000 people die from smoking.

• Smoking can cause cancers.

• Nicotine and carbon monoxide in cigarettes increase your heart rate and blood pressure.

• It can cause heart attacks and stroke.

• Carbon monoxide attaches to the haemoglobin and prevents it from carrying oxygen.

• Smoking causes emphysema and bronchitis.

• Tar coats your lungs when you smoke.

• One in five deaths from heart disease is caused by smoking.

• Fat deposits narrow when you smoke, blocking blood vessels.

• Smoking can shorten your life by 10 years or more.

• Smoking can cause mouth cancer, neck cancer, gangrene and miscarriage.

• Hormone levels in your body decrease when you smoke.

• Air sacs in your lungs can get permanently damaged by smoking.

Other Facts About Smoking

• Cigarettes have about 4000 chemicals. Most of them are harmful.

• They include nicotine, arsenic, methane, ammonia, cadmium and carbon monoxide.

• Nicotine is the drug that is addictive in cigarettes.

• Smoking can make you sick if you are not used to it.

• Smoking increases your chance of a cavity.

• It would be crazy to waste money for harm, since smoking is expensive and harmful.

• Smokers can get sick easily compared to non-smokers.

• In the past, smoking was allowed almost anywhere.

• Second-hand smoke can be as bad as direct smoking.

Welcome to my health news blog! I will post more health news once I get it. 

1. First-year students put on the "freshman 15."

It is a popular belief that undergrads gain 15 pounds in their first year of university, but a new study from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, sets the record straight. A research team from the department of nutritional sciences at Rutgers' Cook College weighed 67 volunteer students in the fall and spring semesters and found that the average weight gain was seven pounds. "We found that the first year of university is a period in which weight and fat gain may occur," says Daniel Hoffman, principal investigator of the study, but the weight gain is less than 15 pounds, and it's not universal." Nevertheless, an alarming three-quarters of the students in the study did gain weight, possibly as a result of consuming too many calories -- breakfast and lunch at all-you-can-eat dining facilities and fast-food joints and increased alcohol intake -- combined with not getting enough exercise."In theory," adds Hoffman, "if this level is maintained through four years of university, these students have the potential to gain 28 pounds by graduation."

2. Cooking with aluminum leads to Alzheimer's?

According to Health Canada, despite a number of studies on the subject, scientists have yet to find a clear link between aluminum and Alzheimer's disease. What they do know is that brain cells of Alzheimer's patients can contain up to 30 times the normal concentration of aluminum, but it's unclear whether this is a cause or result of the disease. "The disease may develop from a combination of risk factors, including genetics, lifestyle and environmental factors," says Dr. Jack Diamond, scientific director of the Alzheimer Society of Canada. "Aluminum pots, pans and foil contribute only very small amounts of aluminum to foods that are cooked in them. The amount does increase when the food is acidic -- like tomatoes or rhubarb -- but there's no proof that this plays a significant role in the development of Alzheimer's."

3. Soy prevents heart disease?

Many companies claim that soy products reduce the risk of heart disease, but soy's health benefits may have been overestimated, says the Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association (AHA). Recent clinical trials by the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston failed to confirm that soy protein improves cardiovascular health, lowers blood pressure or raises high-density lipoprotein, or "good," cholesterol levels. But you're still better off eating a soyburger rather than a cheeseburger, says Alice Lichtenstein, chair of the AHA's Nutrition Committee. "Heart disease is a major problem, so eating soy instead of animal protein is a win."

4. Cellphones cause brain cancer?

The results of a three-year study published in the British Medical Journal this January will, no doubt, reassure all cellphone addicts out there. Researchers from the University of Leeds, The University of Nottingham, The University of Manchester and The Institute of Cancer Research in London collected data on cellphone use from 1,716 healthy people and 966 individuals with gliomas, the most common and fatal type of brain tumour. They concluded that the use of a cellphone is not associated with an increased risk of gliomas on a short- or medium-term basis.

5. Celery helps you lose weight

When you digest celery, you use use more energy digesting it than you get from it. This can be part of a diet to lose weight.

6. We live an average of 29 months longer than Americans

I found this out on CTV News.

7. Vitamin D prevents Parkinsin's disease

Vitamin D slows the aging of brain cells, therefore preventing brain diseases such as Parkinsin's Disease. Vitamin D is automatically produced when the skin is exposed to sunlight,. It can also be found in some foods such as milk and fish.