Surely things can be removed from cigarettes that will make them healthier.
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Along with the factors made by other people, there’s carbon nano-particles. This is found in all smoke – cigarette, bushfire, coal (the main cause of The Great London Smog of 1952 that killed about 10,000 people).
Carbon nanoparticles induce an immune response, but are not destroyed by it. This causes a LOT of problems. For instance, in the lungs, they cause the release of extracellular traps, a ‘net’ of DNA and proteases that are released by immune cells (especially neutrophils). Proteases are the enzymes that cut. This is great for destroying a pathogen, but if the pathogen cannot be destroyed, then it just keeps setting off this response, and you end up with excess proteases which don’t know the difference between a pathogen and your healthy lung cells. Too much protease activity is essentially how you get emphysema.
These nanoparticles are also small enough to cross the lung wall into your blood stream. The immune response there is, eventually, the same plaques that lead to heart blockages and strokes. This small size is also why these nanoparticles end up in the bottom of your lungs, where you can’t cough them out.
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