Smoking and Risks

Risks caused by smoking

Smoking raises blood pressure, which can cause hypertension - a risk factor for heart attacks and stroke.
• Couples who smoke are more likely to have fertility problems than couples who are non-smokers.
• Smoking worsens asthma and counteracts asthma medication by worsening the inflammation of the airways that the medicine tries to ease.
• The blood vessels in the eye are sensitive and can be easily damaged by smoke, causing a bloodshot appearance and itchiness.
• Heavy smokers are twice as likely to get macular degeneration, resulting in the gradual loss of eyesight.
• Smokers run an increased risk of cataracts.
• Smokers take 25 per cent more sick days year than non-smokers.
• Smoking stains your teeth and gums.
• Smoking increases your risk of periodontal disease, which causes swollen gums, bad breath and teeth to fall out.
• Smoking causes an acid taste in the mouth and contributes to the development of ulcers.
• Smoking also affects your looks: smokers have paler skin and more wrinkles. This is because smoking reduces the blood supply to the skin and lowers levels of vitamin A.

JOHANNESBURG - A South African zoo is trying to persuade its star chimpanzee to kick a bad smoking habit.

Charlie, a grown male chimp and the Bloemfontein Zoo, has been picking up cigarettes thrown to him by visitors and smoking them — a habit he probably picked up by observing humans, zoo officials told the SAPA news agency on Thursday.

"Baby chimps pick up habits by mimicking adults and we think he started mimicking smokers at his enclosure which probably led to smokers throwing him cigarettes," spokesman Daryl Barnes told SAPA.

Barnes said Charlie was already showing the signs of a true nicotine addict.

"He even acts like a naughty schoolboy by hiding the cigarette when staff approach the area," Barnes said, adding that the zoo was determined to help him quit.

Barnes said the most important thing was that people stop providing Charlie with cigarettes or any other treats, noting the chimp already had three bad teeth because of all the cans of sweet soft drinks that people throw at him.

Charlie is not the only smoking chimpanzee. A zoo in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou reported last year that one of its chimps had taken up smoking and was desperately cadging cigarette butts off visitors.