Smokers have been looked down with disdain. Smoking comes with the stigma linked to gangsters and irresponsible citizens. Health sectors condemn smoking with all the campaigns they could muster.
However, what we do not realize that certain habits make smoking the lesser evil. The list below is some of the habits as bad (if not worse than) as smoking.
Not Getting Enough Sleep
High blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks, obesity, and other health problems are results of chronic sleep deprivation. When a person does not sleep for at least six hours a day, some researchers have found that, the risk of death is the same as that of a smoker. Tumors grow faster when sleep is constantly interrupted from light sleep to deep sleep.
Tanning Indoors
Skin cancer occurs to at least 420, 000 people yearly in America. This is due to indoor tanning. Smoking, on the other hand, is the cause of 260,000 cases of lung cancer.
To get a natural glow of the skin, eat tomatoes and carrots. They are packed with carotenoids that are great for the skin tone.
Cooking with the Wrong Oil
Cooking has some polluting effects, too, even with the use of electrical stoves. High-heat cooking done with shortening and vegetable oil (sometimes called soybean oil) causes polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and aldehydes to be released. These substances are also found in smoke released in cigarettes. They are associated with the inflammation of the airway.
Cooking With Natural Gas
34 percent of the Americans have homes equipped with a gas stove. These gas stoves are contributors to the presence of nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, and formaldehyde. A scary fact is that these same substances are the main contaminants in a cigarette’s second hand smoke. A study in Environmental Health Perspectives has found that these three pollutants tend to exceed the levels advised by the public health guidelines.
Eating Too Much Meat and Cheese
IGF-1 is a kind of growth hormone that speeds up the development of cancer cells. It is found in animal proteins. People who consume high amounts of meat (animal protein) have greater chance of dying from cancer than people in low protein diets. People who consume less meat have a mortality rate comparable to smokers.
Sitting All Day
Spending a lot of time sitting down all day is linked to a lot health risks. Being inactive for long periods of time has been linked to 160,000 cases of breast cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, and prostate cancer in a year. This is two thirds as many the number of cancer cases triggered by smoking.
