Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Tobacco smoking during pregnancy causes many detrimental effects on health and reproduction, in addition to the general health effects of tobacco.A number of studies have shown that tobacco use is a significant factor in miscarriages among pregnant smokers, and that it contributes to a number of other threats to the health of the foetus.
"In 2008, smoking prevalence was higher among men (23%) than women (18.3%)"; [35] however that gender gap appears to be narrowing. Prior to recent increasing smoking rates, women usually experienced different effects of smoking compared to men. For instance, a decrease in lifetime expectancy is greater for female smokers compared to male smokers.
Smoking is a practice in which a substance is combusted and the resulting smoke is typically inhaled to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream of a person. Most commonly, the substance used is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant, which have been rolled with a small rectangle of paper into an elongated cylinder called a cigarette.
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
One of the most prominent and well studied epigenetic consequences of cigarette smoke is altered DNA methylation. Cigarette smoke acts through a number of mechanisms to effect this, chief among these being smoke-induced damage to the DNA and altered expression levels of proteins involved in DNA methylation and transcriptional regulation.
Smoking during pregnancy is dangerous to the unborn baby and may cause pre-term birth, birth defects such as cleft lip or cleft palate, or miscarriage. [93] [80] Tobacco is the most commonly used substance among pregnant women, at 25%. [87] [94] Nicotine crosses the placenta and accumulates within fetal tissues.
AOL latest headlines, entertainment, sports, articles for business, health and world news.
Smoking cessation (quitting smoking) is the process of discontinuing the practice of tobacco smoking. [209] Quitting can be difficult for many smokers due to the addictive nature of nicotine . [ 210 ] : 2300–2301 The addiction begins when nicotine acts on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors to release neurotransmitters such as dopamine ...