How the smell of petrol can affect your health

The petrol smell actually comes from the petrol fumes. So when you're smelling petrol, diesel or petroleum based fuels, you're actually inhaling their fumes.

These fumes enter the body, get absorbed in the bloodstream and reach your vital organs including the heart and brain. This can cause your blood to contain traces of the fuel and the presence of fuel traces in the blood would have harmful effects in the body.

 If you're smelling the fumes regularly then it can be harmful in the long run.

In the short run, petrol fumes they will coat the lungs and cause the lung cells to die, they quickly reach the brain and cause a number of neurological changes - like the feeling of getting high.

In fact, some people sniff petrol to get high  a state similar to alcohol intoxication. Some of the typical effects are (Now these effects, especially the long-term one, get me thinking of many of the behavioral pattern of  bus drivers and conductors):

Euphoria, numbness, disorientation,  hallucinations, slurred speech, lack of coordination, slowed down reflexes, increased libido, dizziness, a feeling of lightness, disassociation with the environment, coughing, vomiting. impaired decision making, muscle weakness, increased chattiness and extroversion.

According to abc.net.au the long-term effects of sniffing is enormous. The poisonous chemicals in petrol gradually damage the brain, the heart, the lungs, the immune system, the liver and the kidneys. The longer a person sniffs, the worse they damage these organs.

Over the first few years of sniffing petrol, people will begin to show signs of brain damage that will affect their ability to think clearly, concentrate, remember things, learn new things and solve problems. If the sniffing continues, the part of the brain that controls movement and balance is damaged and the person can't walk and talk properly. Many sniffers end up in a wheelchair with permanent brain damage. Some of the brain damage caused by sniffing can repair itself if the person stops sniffing, but the longer they sniff, the less chance there is that the brain will recover.

Sniffing also leads to behavioural and social problems and sniffers often get in trouble with the law for vandalism, violence, robbery and rape. They find it difficult to stay at school and hold down jobs.

Sniffing while pregnant can cause birth defects, such as physical and intellectual disabilities, and may also stop the brain from developing properly.