Smoking has negative effects on the overall wellbeing of the body which can also be detrimental to your ear, nose and throat health. This article shows you some of the reasons why your ENT doctor wants you to stop this dangerous habit, immediately!
Knowing how the nose and sinuses work to keep your body healthy is important to understand why smoking is so damaging to the health of your ears, nose and throat. Your nose and sinuses have mucus-producing membranes that act as your respiratory system’s first line of defense. The nose and sinuses can be likened to the lung. They use tiny hai- like structures on their surfaces, which are called cilia, to move the mucus they produce into the throat to be swallowed.
Smoking causesthe cilia to cease functioning, leading the mucus they produce to build up and become infected by viruses and bacteria. This leads to nose, sinus, throat and lung infections. Though cilia and mucus are our natural body guards against illness, the irritation that is caused by inhaling the toxins in tobacco smoke causes the mucus membranes to overproduce mucus rich in inflammatory substances. This mucus causes further inflammation and blocks up the air spaces of the sinuses and lungs
For these reasons, smokers are much more prone to colds and infections, and commonly experience chronic sinusitis, pharyngitis, bronchitis, asthma and pneumonia.
There are many ENT disorders that can be caused by smoking. While some of these disorders may be non-fatal, the rest can have a great impact on quality of life – They greatly increase visitation to clincis for medical treatment and increase absentism from work and school.
Second-hand Smoke and Children
It is important to remember that second-hand exposure to tobacco smoke also carries similar health risks for non-smokers. Children who live in homes where parents or other individuals smoke indoors are especially at risk of nose, sinus, throat and middle ear infections.
Remember the following at all times:
- Second hand smoke is very harmful to everyone, especially children. Those who are exposed even briefly to second-hand smoke experience increased occurrences of middle ear infections and a longer duration of the illness.
- Cigarrete smoke causes irritation of the Eustachian tube, essential to the ventilation of the middle ear. Damage to the cilia of the mucus membrane of the nose and eustachian tube will lead to build up of mucus in the middle ear. This causes hearing loss, ear discomfort and even dizziness. This accumulated mucus easily gets infected by bacteria turning the mucus to pus causing fever, pain, bursting of the eardrum, scarring of the middle ear and even deafness. Middle ear infection is the commonest cause of hearing loss in young people. If the middle ear is damaged in childhood, the burst eardrum and/or deafness is carried on into adulthood.
- Second-hand smoke is linked to the development of asthma and increased sinus infections.
- The toxins in tobacco smoke damages the mucus membranes of the nose, throat and lungs. Therefore children who are exposed to tobacco smoke frequently show signs of poorer ear, nose and throat health versus children who are not exposed to tobacco smoke.
Smoking is the main cause of lung cancer
Smoking remains the main cause of lung cancer. While some unfortunate individuals who never smoke still develop lung cancers, evidence remains that these are related to pollution and perhaps may also be due to secondary smoke.
Smoking is also the major cause of mouth, tongue and throat cancers in the head and neck regions. The toxins in tobacco smoke causes damage to and mutation in the DNA of cells turning them from healthy to cancerous. When smokers quit smoking, the exposure to these toxins stops and the cells may recover.
These cancers are life threatening and impose great socio-economic burden on the patients and their families. Their treatment can be complex, lengthy, expensive, uncomfortable and may carry long term side effects in order to achieve cure. Hence it is by far better to prevent these cancers by not smoking or quitting smoking early then to face these dreaded diseases when they strike years later.
Dr. Paul Lim Vey Hong,
Consultant ENT Surgeon,
Tung Shin Hospital
