With the progressive awareness about the harmful risks associated with tobacco, you don't notice it so much today in general, but years ago when I was a kid, I recalled watching baseball games and seeing the pitcher on the mound chewing up this big wad of tobacco and spitting it out all over the place. I also remember hearing about how this was so much safer than smoking because you weren't inhaling all that smoke into your lungs. Well, a lot of time has since passed, and it turns out that the dangers of chewing tobacco are just as great as the dangers of lighting up. This article, hopefully, will alert you to those dangers.
In spite of what people believe, chewing tobacco is far from harmless. So if you're thinking of switching to chewing tobacco from smoking because you think it's healthier for you, this couldn't be further from the truth.
First of all, let's get rid of one of the myths of chewing tobacco. Not all chewing tobacco has to be spit out when chewed. Some of the tobacco companies have come up with forms of chewing tobacco that are a lot less messy, but no less dangerous.
One of the risks of chewing tobacco is the same as with smoking, and that is the risk of addiction. Just like with smoking cigarettes, chewing tobacco also contains nicotine and this nicotine is highly addictive, especially after you have been chewing tobacco for an extended period of time. And, with that addiction also comes a tolerance to nicotine. This means that over time, people who chew tobacco have to chew more of it in order to achieve that same level of satisfaction.
What many people don't realize is that in chewing tobacco, unlike with smoking tobacco, there is a great amount of sugar in order to improve the taste. This large amount of sugar eventually leads to gum disease because it causes the gums to pull away from the teeth.
Another thing that people don't realize is that chewing tobacco also increases your heart rate as well as your blood pressure. This can lead to heart attack or stroke. Also, people who use chewing tobacco have higher cholesterol levels than those who don't.
Probably the worst danger of chewing tobacco is oral cancer. This can be cancer of the gums, throat, cheek, mouth or tongue. The surgery required to treat those with oral cancer is dangerous and can lead to terrible disfiguration. Usually, these cancerous sores are preceded by sores that are called pre-cancerous. These pre-cancerous sores many times turn into cases of oral cancer.
The major risk of chewing tobacco is the oral cancer which is a terrible way to die as you literally die one piece at a time and various parts of the body are detached until you have to eat through a tube.