image While lung cancer and other lung related issues often garner the most fear and attention, the greatest risks posed from smoking numeric wise is the heart and circulatory assault posed by cigarettes. Nicotine itself is a major culprit in much of the heart disease risk. Nicotine is noteworthy for not only does it keep the smoker in a state of needing to deliver dose after dose of itself, but at the same time it has all the cardiovascular effects that put a chronic additional workload on your heart. When mixed with carbon monoxide the risk is enhanced significantly. If they were ever to strip out all of the other carcinogens and the 4,000 other chemicals in cigarette smoke and leave a cigarette with only nicotine and carbon monoxide being delivered, there is a pretty good chance that a significant proportion of people who were dying from smoking would still die from it. These two chemicals by themselves are primarily responsible for a huge amount of smoking deaths. To avoid ever pouring either one of these chemicals into your system at toxic levels, as well as all of the other poisons in cigarettes always remember to never take another puff!
Joel