Imagine yourself working in a small town. Your office also doubles as the break room, which means that everyone spends their smoking breaks just a few feet from you. It’s the norm in a little country town, so no one thinks anything of it and simply gossips about the day and local town happenings. But you could be setting yourself up for lung cancer, oral cancer just from this small town office break room.

That is, until you discover you have lung cancer – lung cancer, and you haven’t smoked a day in your entire life.  The only exposure you’ve had to anything that could cause such a tragic diagnosis is the 15 years you worked for the public office in that small town, inhaling second hand smoke.

According to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), second hand smoke is “is the combination of sidestream smoke (the smoke given off by the burning end of a tobacco product) and mainstream smoke (the smoke exhaled by the smoker).” Other names for second hand smoke include involuntary smoking and passive smoking – how appropriate.

NCI states that there are more than 4,000 chemicals in second hand smoke, of which 250 are certainly harmful, with 50 of them linked directly to cancer. While the chemicals found in smoke vary depending on the type of tobacco, the way the manufacturer puts the product together and how users smoke the product, there is no doubt that it is harmful to those unwillingly exposed to it.

Included in those 50 lethal chemicals found in second hand smoke are arsenic, beryllium, chromium and nickel – all types of metal. Benzene, a chemical in gasoline, is also found in second hand smoke, as well as ethylene oxide, a chemical used in the sterilization of medical devices; polonium-210, which is radioactive; and vinyl chloride used in plastics manufacturing. What a scary thought – that these things infiltrate your system through second hand smoke.

The National Cancer Institute states that approximately 3,000 deaths occur each year from cancer as a result of exposure only to second hand smoke. Daily exposure to a smoker results in a 20 to 30 percent increased risk for lung cancer. Those numbers simply cannot be ignored. You can lower your risk of lung cancer and oral cancer if you take preventative measures now.