[ Post a Response | The Sublime Desire of Cigarette Smoking ]
Posted by M G F on October 15, 2008, 12:33 pm, in reply to "Inquiry"
I'll try to not be too clinical.
The causes of the grayness you describe vary from smoker to smoker, but vesperae is correct that they are largely related to peripheral capillary blood flow. The first thing to keep in mind is that smoking affects every aspect of how your body functions. The effects aren’t limited to the respiratory and circulatory systems.
Smoking affects how your body absorbs and uses nutrients, generally inhibiting their use. As a result, the grayness you describe is frequently caused, in part, by what amounts to poor nutrition in younger smokers. Decreased blood flow is most noticeable in the extremities such as your hands and feet, and facial extremities like lips and ears.
Extensive facial wrinkling, particularly around the mouth, has long been associated with smoking. For many years it was assumed that the wrinkles were the result of the smoker “puckering” her mouth while drawing on her cigarette and decreased blood flow. Recent and ongoing studies, however, have begun to indicate that a smoker’s susceptibility to extensive facial wrinkles is linked to her susceptibility to emphysema. The evidence isn’t conclusive, but it seems to indicate that the loss of elasticity in the smokers face occurs in tandem with the loss of elasticity in her lungs, indicating that more than the gradual hardening of tar deposits is responsible for emphysema.
As for reversibility, The grayness does tend to go away when a person stops smoking, but just as with emphysema, permanent damage is not reversible. In some cases it can be balanced to some extent by improvements to areas that are not permanently damaged. For example, a smoker with early stage emphysema who quits smoking will never recover functionality in the bullae that have formed, but may be able to slow the progression of bullae formation in other parts of her lungs, and improve functionality if she quits smoking and engages in low-impact aerobics. Once emphysema has begun, however, it is not reversible, and if the patient lives long enough, will eventually become severe and debilitating. If a smoker with extensive facial wrinkles stops smoking, chances the wrinkles will stay, but the rate at which new wrinkles form will slow considerably.
M G F
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