Consumption of alcohol, tobacco, etc.

The consumption of some substances, some of them legally available in almost all countries, has shown a particularly harmful effect on health.

Among the most used, they lead to social habits that can lead to physical and / or psychological dependencies; thus, smoking or alcoholism are those that affect a greater number of people. Other habits are the consumption of other molecules, many of them considered illicit drugs and whose consequences can be very important for health.

Tobacco use

The harmful consequences on the body, produced by the consumption of tobacco products are important on many tissues, organs and systems, producing important pathologies and health losses. Thus, it is estimated that tobacco products are the main responsible each year for hundreds of thousands of deaths and chronic disease in millions of people. Deaths due to smoking are much higher than deaths due to diseases such as AIDS or Tuberculosis, due to the consumption of any other drug, traffic accidents, suicides and murders.

Thus, the main consequences of smoking are the development of:

• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: with its most important manifestations, chronic bronchitis and emphysema, lung diseases are of almost constant appearance in smoking patients.
• cardiovascular diseases: arteriosclerosis is more intense in smokers, and its manifestations such as myocardial infarction, peripheral arterial disease or vascular-cerebral accidents are much more frequent in smokers.
• Lung cancer and other cancers caused or influenced by smoking, such as: cancer of the lip, oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, pancreas, cervix, kidney and bladder.
• In women who smoke during pregnancy, their children will have a higher incidence of prematurity, low birth weight, death at birth, sudden infant death and even infertility in adulthood.
• In postmenopausal women, osteoporosis tends to be more important among those who smoke, manifesting as an increased risk of fracture of the femur.

Alcohol consumption

Alcoholism is another very widespread habit in all societies, with very significant negative consequences for consumers.

Alcohol is absorbed quickly and passes into the bloodstream. During their passage through the liver, the alcohol molecules are treated by this organ like a poison, dedicating all its metabolic efforts to the destruction of alcohol and postponing any other metabolic pathway until there is no longer circulating alcohol; therefore, the metabolism of most drugs changes in the presence of alcohol and their effectiveness and undesirable effects may be increased.

If the blood alcohol concentration is higher than the metabolic possibilities of the liver, the clinical effects of alcohol intoxication will appear, especially a depression of the heart and respiratory rhythm, peripheral arterial vasodilation and loss of the control mechanisms of the brain.

Therefore, the clinical manifestations of alcohol intoxication can range from impaired abilities to perform complex actions (driving), reduction of social inhibitions, decreased attention span and concentration, memory impairment, thinking and motor coordination.

They are aggravated by the concentration of circulating alcohol, resulting in sedation that can lead the individual to coma and death.

Thus, and for many different reasons, acute or chronic alcoholism is related to traffic accidents, malnutrition, the transmission of sexual diseases, the risk of unwanted pregnancies, spontaneous abortions due to fetal alcoholism, and chronic liver disease (cirrhosis and liver cancer), head, neck, stomach and breast cancers, depressive syndrome and other psychiatric disorders, loss of social support, social exclusion and death.

Consumption of other substances

Other substances such as marijuana, cocaine, narcotics, intravenous drugs or some drugs produce a syndrome of physical and / or psychological dependence that can have physical, psychological and social repercussions of great importance.

It is important, in the event of any suspicion of sporadic use or dependence on any of these molecules, to consult with specialized health personnel who can know, evaluate and manage both the possible physical, psychological and even economic and social consequences that the consumption of these substances can cause. about the person.