Page 100 - Interchange English 5

What Is Passive Smoking?
Passive smoking (or secondhand smoking) means breathing in other
FOR SAMPLE ONLY
people’s tobacco smoke. Secondhand smoke (SHS) is also known as
environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Secondhand smoke makes you more
likely to get lung cancer. It’s also bad for your heart. Although it is a danger

to everyone, children, pregnant women and the partners of people who
smoke are most vulnerable. Passive smoking increases the risk of sudden
infant death syndrome (SIDS), middle ear disease, asthma, respiratory
illnesses, lung cancer and heart disease.

Kids like you are particularly at risk
for the effects of secondhand smoke
because your bodies are still growing and
you breathe at a faster rate than adults.
Moreover, exposure to secondhand
smoke in childhood causes irreversible
damage to your arteries - increasing your

risk of heart attacks or strokes when you
grow up. “Exposure to passive smoke in
childhood causes direct and irreparable
damage to the structure of the arteries,” said Seana Gall, a researcher at
the University of Tasmania. Since children of parents who smoke are also
more likely to grow up to be smokers themselves, and more likely to be
overweight, their heart health risks are often already raised, Seana said,
and the second-hand smoke adds yet more risk. About 40 percent of all

children are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke at home, and almost
a third of the deaths attributable to second-hand smoke are in children.

Smoking causes lung cancer, which is often fatal, and is the world’s biggest
cause of premature death from chronic conditions like heart disease,
stroke and high blood pressure. On top of the 6 million people a year killed
by their own smoking, the World Health Organization (WHO) says another
600,000 die a year as a result of exposure to other peoples’ smoke. Of the
more than 4,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke, at least 250 are known to be
harmful and more than 50 are known to cause cancer.

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