Midterm 1- Lesson 1-17 Flashcards
List the health risks associated with smoking.
In the United States, smoking accounts for approximately 1 in every 5 deaths, with the largest portion of these deaths attributed to cancer. In addition to the risks for heart disease and lung cancer, smoking increases the risk for chronic bronchitis, emphysema, respiratory disorders, some additional cancers, damage and injuries due to fires and accidents, lower birth weight in offspring, retarded fetal development.
Identify the synergistic effects of smoking.
Smoking has a synergistic effect on other health-related risk factors; that is, it enhances the detrimental effects of other risk factors in compromising health.
- Cholesterol and smoking: These two factors interact to produce higher rates of morbidity and mortality due to heart disease than would be expected from simply adding together the risk of each one alone.
- Stress and smoking: For men, nicotine can increase the magnitude of heart rate reactivity to stress. For women, smoking can reduce heart rate but increase blood pressure responses, which is also an adverse reactivity pattern.
- Weight and smoking: Overweight smokers have a much greater risk of mortality compared with average-weight smokers.
- Exercise and smoking: Smokers engage in less physical activity as long as they continue smoking, which compounds their susceptibility to a number of health problems.
- Depression and smoking: Depressed individuals who smoke are at a substantially greater risk for cancer. Immune alterations associated with major depression interact with smoking to elevate white blood cell count and to produce a decline in natural killer cell activity.
Cite evidence that smoking has a genetic component.
Twin and adoption studies have established the heritability of smoking behavior. Genes that regulate dopamine functioning are likely candidates for heritable influences on cigarette smoking, particularly the inability to stop smoking and to resist relapse during and after treatment.
Name the environmental factors and personality traits that are most conducive to adolescent smoking behavior.
Environmental factors: Starting to smoke results from a social contagion process, whereby nonsmokers have contact with others who are trying out smoking or with regular smokers and then try smoking for themselves. Once they begin smoking, adolescents are more likely to prefer the company of peers who smoke. The company of peers and family members who smoke can reduce the perception that smoking is harmful and thus encourage smoking. Adolescents are also more likely to start smoking if their parents smoke; if they are lower class; if they feel social pressure to smoke; and if there has been a major stressor in the family, such as parental separation or job loss; these effects are partly due to the increase in stress and depression that may result.
Personality factors: Teenagers whose ideal self-image is close to that of a typical smoker are most likely to smoke. Low self-esteem, external locus of control, a sense of powerlessness, low achieving, and social isolation all increase the tendency to imitate others’ behavior. Smoking among adolescents is also tied to aggressive tendencies and depression. Feelings of being hassled, angry, or sad increase the likelihood of smoking. Maladaptive coping styles, especially those that involve withdrawal or repressive coping, and lower levels of exercise may contribute to the depression seen among some teen tobacco users.
Explain how nicotine interacts with neurotransmitters to enhance memory, mood, and, and the performance of basic tasks.
Nicotine alters levels of active neurotransmitters, including acetylcholine, norephinephrine, dopamine, endogenous opioids, and vasopressin. Nicotine may be used by smokers to engage these neurotransmitters because they produce temporary improvements in performance of affect. Specifically, acetylcholine, norephinephrine, and vasopressin appear to enhance memory, whereas acetylcholine and beta endorphins can reduce anxiety and tension. Alterations in dopamine, norepinephrine, and opioids improve mood, and people find that their performance on basic tasks is often improved when levels of acetylcholine and norephinephrine are high. Consequently, smoking among habitual smokers increases concentration, recall, alertness, arousal, psychomotor performance, and the ability to screen out irrelevant stimuli.
Cite evidence that nicotine addiction alone is not enough to account for smoking behavior.
In studies that alter nicotine level in the bloodstream, smokers do not alter their smoking behavior enough to compensate for these manipulations. Moreover, smoking is responsive to rapidly changing forces in the environment long before such forces can affect blood plasma levels of nicotine. Finally, high rates of relapse are found among smokers long after plasma nicotine levels are at zero.
