EFFECTS OF SMOKING

Effects of Smoking

Effects of Smoking

In addition to heart disease, stroke, and cancer, men and women in the United States lose their lives to unintentional injuries, chronic lower-respiratory diseases, diabetes, suicide, homicide, influenza and pneumonia, kidney disease, and Alzheimer's disease. While the events and diseases that claim the lives of men are often induced by factors that cannot be controlled, it is believed that more than 1 million premature deaths of men in the United States occur each year due to lifestyle factors such as smoking, unhealthy diet, and lack of exercise (Zack, 2001).

Men are more likely to smoke than are women, and a study by the CDC found that women of all ethnic backgrounds eat a healthier diet than do their male counterparts, including far more fruits and vegetables into their diets than do men. Men do exercise more often than do women in the United States, though with only about 16 percent of all men and women over age 15 exercising or participating in some sports activity daily. There is clearly a need for both men and women to initiate a daily exercise program into their lives (Field, 2004).

Not smoking, eating a healthy diet, and exercising regularly, are also crucial to healthy sexual functioning in men. Smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes are all related to sexual dysfunction in men. Researchers theorize that because these behaviors and conditions all to be damage blood vessels, they also affect the minute blood vessels in the penis, causing them to become inelastic and obstructed (Zwann, 2000).

It is important for men to remember that all men experience erection problems at some point in their lives whether due to alcohol, stress, physical or mental exhaustion, or anxiety. Temporary or more long-lasting bouts of impotence can exact a great emotional toll on men, and seeking out information about impotence and trusting and involving your partner in the process of dealing with impotence are vital factors in dealing with it in a positive, effective manner. Further, though sexual functioning may change with age, growing older should not be seen as an end to sexual pleasure—surveys have found that about 30 percent of men in their sixties have sex weekly.

Physical health is intimately tied to mental health in both men and women, and men, like women, suffer from a variety of mental illnesses and disturbances. For example, in the United States, there are more ...