Tar, known as the most destructive component in smoking, is the resinous material produced by burning of a cigarette. Each time you puff a cigarette, tar enters your lungs.If you have been smoking for a long time, tar begins to accumulate inside your lungs. The lungs will start to remove through the minute hair-like filaments called cilia. Cilia function by sweeping impurities and deposits out of the lungs. Under normal circumstances, the lungs can efficiently clean themselves. But if you are a habitual smoker, heavy smoker, or chain smoker, the increasing tar build-up will damage the cilia. This will now result in tar lungs. If your lungs cannot function efficiently, you will start to cough because this is another method to clean your lungs. This is called smoker’s cough. Therefore, smoker’s cough is a symptom of tar lungs.

Tar is also responsible for lung cancer because it is carcinogenic and mutagenic. In the United States, 87% of lung cancer cases are related to smoking! People who smoked at some point in their lives have a one in ten chance of developing lung cancer! If you continue smoking, the risk increases to one in six! Tar smoking facts are quite worrisome indeed.

Cigarettes are now classified according to tar content. High-tar cigarettes contain at least 22 milligrams of tar. Medium-tar cigarettes have 15 to 21 milligrams while low-tar cigarettes contain 7 milligrams or less. But no study has shown that low tar levels will not cause cancer. First, even if it is a low-tar cigarette, tar is still there. And aside from tar, there are still many carcinogens present in a single cigarette!

What do you do? Quit now! Many studies show that the health risks of smoking can be minimized by quitting. Smokers who stopped smoking before turning 30 years old lived almost as long as those who never smoked! What are you waiting for? Quit now!

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