How Smoking Damage the Lung and Brain

Most people who smoke have read the warnings on the sides of a cigarette package declaring smoking to be the leading cause of lung cancer. This is the main focus of most no-smoking advocates as even second hand smoke from breathing in the air around someone else who is smoking enters the system of anyone standing nearby and has the same effects on them as they do the actual smoker. Lung cancer is not the only damaging effect of smoking. As the smoke enters the system it is taken into the lungs and while the most prominent damage does occur there it travels through the body affecting many organs even the brain.

When smoke enters the lung it makes your body work harder to extract any remaining oxygen from what is available. The smoke itself damages the delicate lung tissues and the small air sacs inside the lungs known as alveoli. These small air sacs become less resilient and can stretch less because they become hardened by the smoke. The resulting dead tissues of the lung are black and hardened. This shows up in the form of diseases that are categorized as COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Members of this disease group are: bronchitis, emphysema and asthma.

The main function of the lungs is to extract oxygen from the surrounding air and transfer it to the blood stream via the alveoli. There are somewhere around 300,000 alveoli in the lungs. Over time the destruction of these alveoli limits the amount of air the lungs can take in and therefore the amount of oxygen that can be transferred to the vital organs of the body. Blood passes through the lungs the alveoli transfer the oxygen to it and it is carried to the brain. Smoking causes damage to the brain because it limits the amount of oxygen available to it.

Many smokers believe that they think better when they smoke. This is a deceptive feeling that is actually caused by a temporary euphoria brought on by the nicotine receptors in the brain. In reality it is the time when they feel less sharp that are the effects of smoking. The lack of oxygen to the brain creates a long-term fogginess and cloudiness of mental capacity that is temporarily alleviated by a sudden influx of nicotine but then becomes even more pronounced immediately after each episode. Those times when a smoker feels less sharp are the times they should always have the same feeling they get when they smoke and are the signs of decreased brain function.

People who begin smoking in their youth often have stunted intellectual development and adults who smoke have more episodes of forgetfulness. Damages in the brain related to smoking are harder to establish than the trauma caused to the lungs by smoking. However, since every organ in the body is dependent on oxygen from blood in order to function properly, and since smoking limits the oxygen available, it is more than reasonable to expect that every bodily function is impaired by the act of smoking. Don’t wait to stop smoking. The sooner you quit, the sooner you will start repairing the damages smoking has caused. Quit Smoking Today

Threaten the Coral Triangle Damage (Ancaman pada Kerusakan Coral Triangle)

Denpasar – The global warming threatens to cause damages to the coral triangle area triangle or coral reefs in the six countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Salomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste, and the Philippines.

Damage to coral reefs triangle is feared to ruin the life of local people in the surrounding areas. The first local people became the first victims due to the coral reef damage.

To anticipate and to save coral reefs from global warming, the environmental activists from six countries designed the protocol for adaptation on saving coral reefs.

The protocol design was discussed in the workshop on planning the impact of climate change on coral reefs, participated by 40 researchers, government representatives and NGOs at Mercure Sanur hotel, Mertasari road, Denpasar.

More than 50 percent of coral reefs of the world species live in the coral triangle area. According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as much as 30 percent of world’s coral reefs were dead due to the El Nino storms in 1998. It was predicted that in 10 years there will be another 30% damage.

“Total damage to coral reefs will reach 60 percent,” said Elizabeth Mc Ieod, a Researcher Climate Adaptation Asia Pacific Region, on Thursday (4/8/2009).

To minimize impact the coral reefs damage to local communities, two steps are required, namely through satellite monitoring and early warning information network. Monitoring of satellite has the aim to monitor whether any coral reef is damaged.

“Is it true there has been coral reef damage, and what will be the next predictions?” said Elizabeth.

Meanwhile, the network of early warning information is aimed at presenting the results analyzed by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration) to local communities. “The network was built to speed information to the local community,” said NOAA Coral Reef Watch Scoot F. Heron.

The biggest challenges faced by the activists is how the technology is beneficial for local communities that will be directly affected due to the coral reefs damage in the area of this coral triangle.

INDONESIAN VERSION

Denpasar – Pemanasan global mengancam kerusakan terumbu karang di kawasan coral triangle atau segitiga terumbu karang yang ada di enam negara, yaitu Indonesia, Malaysia, Kepulauan Salomon, Papua Nugini, Timor Leste, dan Philipina.

Kerusakan segitiga terumbu karang ini dikhawatirkan merusak kehidupan masyarakat lokal yang berada di sekitarnya. Masyarakat lokal yang pertama kali menjadi korban akibat kerusakan terumbu karang ini.

Untuk mengantisipasi dan menyelamatkan terumbu karang akibat pemanasan global ini, para aktivis lingkungan dari enam negara tersebut merancang protokol adaptasi penyelamatan terumbu karang.

Rancang protokol tersebut dibahas dalam workshop perencanaan dampak perubahan iklim terhadap terumbu karang yang diikuti 40 orang peneliti, perwakilan pemerintah dan LSM di hotel Mercure Sanur, jalan Mertasari, Denpasar.

Lebih dari 50 persen spesies terumbu karang dunia hidup di kawasan coral triangle. Berdasarkan data Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), sebanyak 30 persen terumbu karang dunia telah mati akibat badai el nino pada 1998 lalu. Diprediksi, pada 10 tahun ke depan akan kembali terjadi kerusakan sebanyak 30 persen.

“Total kerusakan terumbu karang akan mencapai 60 persen,” kata Elizabeth Mc Ieod, seorang Peneliti Adaptasi Iklim Wilayah Asia Pasifik, Kamis (4/8/2009).

Untuk meminimalkan dampak kerusakan terumbu karang kepada masyarakat lokal, diperlukan dua langkah, yaitu pemantauan melalui satelit serta jaringan informasi peringatan dini. Pemantauan dari satelit bertujuan untuk memantau apakah terjadi kerusakan terumbu karang.

“Apakah benar terjadi kerusakan terumbu karang serta meramalkan kejadian berikutnya,” kata Elizabeth.

Sedangkan jaringan informasi peringatan dini ini bertujuan untuk menyampaikan hasil analisa yang diperoleh oleh badan dunia NOAA (National Cceanic and Atmospheire Administration) tersebut kepada masyarakat lokal. “Akan dibangun jaringan untuk mempercepat informasi tersebut kepada masyarakat lokal,” kata NOAA Coral Reef Watch Scoot F. Heron.

Tantangan terbesar yang dihadapi oleh para aktivis ini adalah bagaimana agar teknologi ini bermanfaat bagi masyarakat lokal yang akan terkena dampak langsung akibat kerusakan terumbu karang di kawasan coral triangle ini.

Schistosomiasis Causes More Damage Than Previously Thought

The health burden of an Asian strain of the parasitic flatworm schistosomiasis is more damaging to the global health burden than previously thought, according to a study published on March 5, 2008 in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Schistosomiasis, a parasitic flatworm of the genus Schistosoma, can localize in several parts of the body but commonly affects the intestines. Symptoms include abdominal pain, fever, cough, diarrhea, abnormally high eosinophil count, and enlargement of the liver and spleen, and it is transmitted through certain species of snails. It primarily infects people in developing countries, infecting an estimated 207 million people in 76 (mostly developing) countries. There are several species of the Schistosoma genus that affect humans — this study focused on Schistosomiasis japonica, found in China and the Philippines.

Through the Global Burden of Disease project, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the incidence, prevalence, severity, and length of over 130 major causes of illness, injury, and death throughout the world. A statistical measure known as the disability-adjusted life year (DALY) is used, which means to estimate the number of years of life lost due to premature death and any years lost in disability. This data is often used by policy makers to determine the level of funding for prevention programs, treatment efforts, and research.

According to the WHO, schistosomiasis has a low disease burden, with a 0.005 DALY score on a scale of 0 (for perfect health) to 1 (for death.) However, the burder of schistosomiasis has not been examined in more than a decade. To this end, the researchers performed a literature search to find data, and a decision model approach to re-examine the burden of this disease. The researchers calculated that the symptoms of Schistosomiasis japonica is 7 to 46 times greater than the current estimate. The team arrived at an estimate of 0.098 to 0.186. This study is the first to focus on one strain of the disease, and it is part of an ever growing group of evidence that this common parasitic disease is more damaging than previously estimated for global health.

“Schistosomiasis has a detrimental impact on nutrition and growth and development and can lead to major organ damage and death,” study author Julia Finkelstein , of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA, says. “Current measures may severely underestimate the disability-related impact of the infection and need to be revised.”

Dr. Charles King, of Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, USA, who was not involved in the study but wrote an accompanying Expert Commentary article, predicted that, “Ultimately, these new measures of schistosomiasis-associated disability will translate into a greater priority to control schistosomiasis.” Integrating new approaches and discoveries with these old estimates will, he says,”be essential to providing a balanced and fair assessment of neglected tropical diseases, and for properly setting disease control priorities for these disabling diseases of poverty.”

About PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases

PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases (http://www.plosntds.org/) is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal devoted to the pathology, epidemiology, prevention, treatment, and control of the neglected tropical diseases, as well as public policy relevant to this group of diseases. All works published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases are open access, which means that everything is immediately and freely available subject only to the condition that the original authorship and source are properly attributed. The Public Library of Science uses the Creative Commons Attribution License, and copyright is retained by the authors.

About the Public Library of Science

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world’s scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. For more information, visit http://www.plos.org.