Arsenic Formaldehyde Acetic Acid Hydrazine Acetone Hydrogen Cyanide Ammonia Naphthalene Benzene Nickel Cadmium Phenol Carbon Monoxide Polonium These and other harmful factors related to smoking, such as the effects of secondhand smoke, are some of the obvious reasons to quit. Here are some tips for quitting and a list of some things you can look forward to in your quest to develop a smoke-free lifestyle. That s more than twice as fast as mainlining heroin. A pack-a day smoker gets between 50,000 and 70,000 such nicotine jolts a year. No other drug-taking habit comes near that number of fixes.
Nicotine causes the heart to beat much faster.
Blood vessels constrict, blood pressure rises, pulse rate increases, and free fatty acids pour into blood. These effects, combined with the stress caused by carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke, are thought to cause 120,000 excess heart attack deaths a year among U.S. smokers. Nicotine has other contradictory effects. It stimulates nerves in muscles, but this quickly gives way to a kind of paralysis. Nicotine excites the vomiting reflex both in the brain and in the nerves of the stomach.