Smoking makes us sick. We know this. But what is actually in a cigarette and what exactly is it dangerous? There are even studies that say that nicotine alone is no more dangerous than caffeine. What's the point of this statement and what makes a cigarette deadly?
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- What is nicotine?
- What's in the cigarette?
- Cigarette without additives: Is that healthier?
- If you want to stop smoking, you may also be interested in this topic
What is nicotine?
Nicotine is highly dependency. The active ingredient enters the brain after about 10 to 20 seconds and makes it lively in low doses. In higher he is relaxing. Scientists even suggest that nicotine triggers a higher dependency than heroin .
Not only the nicotine itself makes a cigarette so dangerous, but the many additives that are buried every cigarette. "Since nicotine is normally smoked, the substance is not responsible for the high toxicity of the cigarette. Instead, the ingredients such as tar, carbon monoxide and benzene provide it. Thus the effect is not deadly, but nevertheless dangerous in the long run, because it leads to a high degree of dependency, explains Professor Stephan M hlig of Germans cancer research center.
However, more recent studies also see this critically: Nikotin probably also promotes the development of tumors, according to Andreas Dietz of the Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic Leipzig in the journal HNO. The popular combination of alcohol and cigarettes adds even more to the mucous membranes. Nine out of ten throat cancer sufferers, say the physicians, are triggered by this concentrated pollutant effect.
What's in the cigarette?
Nicotine is just one of about 4, 800 chemicals that are in a cigarette. Around 90 of them can provoke cancer. They damage the genetic material and cause malignant cancer.
The tobacco industry makes cigarettes particularly attractive by adding additives to the tobacco to facilitate smoking. Sugar, which is said to taste the cigarette mildly, becomes carcinogenic acetaldehyde upon burning.
The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture has developed a search engine in which you can look up which additives your brand contains. It's this way.
Cigarette without additives: Is that healthier?
Almost all brands of cigarettes are now also "without additives". However, experts warn that this is more marketing than reality. Because even if the tobacco is without additives, filters and paper are treated with chemicals. These form by burning a no less dangerous poison cocktail when smoking the cigarette.
