any people believe that smoking harms the lungs easily. However, according to Dr. Cheng-Hsiung Hsieh (謝正雄), chest medicine physician at the YuanSheng Hospital of Changhua Christian Healthcare System in Taiwan, smoking not only harms lungs, but in fact, it damages nearly all body organs in long-term heavy smokers. Even though smoking will not directly cause death, it significantly affects heavy smokers’ quality of life, as they show the prevalence of respiratory symptoms, such as asthma, chronic bronchitis and physical deterioration.

Dr. Hsieh said, smoking will release a radioactive material called “polonium-210” which is potentially dangerous to human health. According to World Health Organization’s statistics, tobacco kills an average of about 5 million people per year globally. In other words, an average of one person dies from the harmful effects of tobacco every 6 seconds. Long-term smoking can evidently lead to various diseases, like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), one of the most common respiratory diseases resulting from smoking.