How Are Smoking and Bladder Cancer Related

Smoking still remains a great health concern and with the number of smokers rising steadily, it is essential to address this issue once again. It is really amazing that inspite of being fully aware of the health hazards more and more people are tempted to smoke. It not only has a serious negative impact on your oral as well as bowel health, but also affects the lives of your near and dear ones. Bladder cancer is a dangerous type of cancer and one of the major factors responsible for causing it is smoking. It can be extremely painful for the patient as well as his family members to go through the entire process of treating bladder cancer. Hence, it is necessary that every individual should try to understand as to what is it that causes bladder cancer.

Relation Between Bladder Cancer and Smoking

The smoking becomes addictive because of nicotine. Most people seem to assume that the nicotine content in cigarettes has been reduced and hence there is little chance that it will affect their health. Surprisingly, the health hazards are still growing and one of the major cancers occuring due to this bad habit of smoking was bladder cancer. So, what is the exact reason? Here are the details.

Though nicotine content was reduced, the risk of bladder cancer almost increased by nearly five percent. Research work showed that as smokers thought that the amount of nicotine was reduced, while smoking they inhaled deeply and smoked more number of times. The nicotine used in todays times is, however, more carcinogenic than it was used in the earlier times, as it contains more naphthylamine. The toxins are taken inside the body while inhaling. These are then absorbed in the blood stream and excreted in the urine. Since the bladder is responsible for storing urine for a longer time and expelling it only when it is full, the lining of the bladder may get damaged because of the carcinogen.

Though men are more likely to get affected by this cancer, women are equally at risk and more so, because the blood in the urine is often misdiagnosed as the post menopausal symptom, urinary tract infection, cystitis, etc. It is solely due to this reason that the diagnosis of cancer is prolonged. It then leads to more advanced tumors making the condition really serious. Even if you are a passive smoker, it does not decrease the risk in any way. The gene structure may change and the DNA may get damaged due to the tobacco smoke, thus increasing the risk of bladder cancer almost twice.

To avoid the prevalence of this dreadful disease, you can visit http://www.cancer8.com/bladder-cancer/ to gain more knowledge about the signs, symptoms, causes, treatments, etc. Smoking cessation is the only preventive way in which an individual can help himself/herself to lower the risk of bladder cancer. So, whether you are a cancer patient or not, realizing the adverse effects it has on your health, it is never really too late to quit smoking.