Question

(What is the condition of an athlete who uses tobacco?)​

Answer 1

Answer:

Tobacco use, especially cigarette smoking, has been associated with many diseases, such as bronchitis, stroke, cancer, and heart diseases. Athletes are no exception and those who use tobacco are prone to the same dangerous health effects. Professional athletes are commonly characterized as being fit, strong, and healthy. To be able to perform at the competitive level the respiratory (e.g., lung function) and the cardiovascular systems should be in perfect health and function optimally. However, these systems are affected by smoking, impeding their normal function and leading to reduced athletic performance .

Physical exercise has been reported to reduce the incidence of some smoking hazards such as lung cancer. Women who were smokers or former smokers but were involved in physical activities had a reduced chance of suffering from lung cancer compared to those who were inactive. On the other hand, tobacco use affects the lungs, reducing their capacity and the ability to take in enough oxygen; therefore it can negatively impact an athlete’s performance. Athletes are known to experience effects, such as increased resting heart rate, narrowed blood vessels, and less oxygenated blood among others. One of the repercussions of smoking is that it constricts the blood vessels, due to the imbalance of vasodilatory and vasoconstrictive actions originating from the endothelium . The reduced vessel size makes it difficult to pump enough blood to the working muscles, which in turn can affect athletic performance. Increased sympathetic activation and heart rate, along with coronary and peripheral vessel constriction, lead to increased myocardial workload, placing greater stress on the heart .Moreover, the inhalation of carbon monoxide found in cigarettes reduces oxygen delivery, because CO combines with hemoglobin in the blood to form carboxyhemoglobin (COHb), displacing oxygen and also causing a leftward shift in the O2-Hb disassociation curve. In fact, the level of COHb found in smokers was higher compared to nonsmokers, which had a clear impact on the ability of the muscles to resist fatigue during voluntary muscle contractions .Moreover, impaired exercise tolerance and exercise capacity in young smokers have been explained by reduced tissue oxygenation, arising from arterial O2 desaturation and insufficient O2 delivery.