Smoking poses significant health risks, including lung cancer, heart disease, and respiratory issues. It can also u lead to various other cancers, reduced immunity, and overall decreased quality of life. Additionally, secondhand smoke exposure can harm others. Quitting smoking has numerous health benefits. Smoking kills!
Quitting Smoking and Avoiding Secondhand Smoke
One of the best ways to reduce your risk of heart disease is to avoid tobacco smoke.
- Don’t ever start smoking.
- If you already smoke, quit. No matter how much or how long you’ve smoked, quitting will benefit you.
- Avoid secondhand smoke. Don’t go to places where smoking is allowed. Ask friends and family members who smoke not to do it in the house and car.
Quitting smoking lowers your risk of getting, and dying from, heart disease. Over time, quitting lowers your risk for atherosclerosis and blood clots too.
If you smoke and already have heart disease, quitting reduces your risk of cardiac death, heart attacks, and death from other chronic diseases.
Not smoking is an important part of a heart-healthy lifestyle, which also includes healthy eating, aiming for a healthy weight, managing stress, and increasing physical activity
EFFECTS OF SMOKING
Smoking can cause long-term negative effects on the body, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
Whether smoked or chewed, tobacco is dangerous to your health. Tobacco products contain unsafe substances, from acetone and tar to nicotine and carbon monoxide. The inhaled substances can affect your lungs and the other organs in your body.
Smoking can lead to ongoing complications and long-term effects on your body systems. While smoking can increase your risk of certain health conditions over years, like glaucoma, cancer, and issues with blood clotting, some of the bodily effects happen immediately.
But quitting smoking can reverse many of these effects on your body.
Learn more about the symptoms and overall effects of smoking on the body below.
Tobacco smoke is incredibly harmful to your health. There’s no safe way to smoke. Replacing your cigarette with a cigar, pipe, e-cigarette, or hookah won’t help you avoid the health risks.
Overall health and cancer risk
Smoking can harm the organs in your body and negatively impact your overall health.
Smoking can increase inflammation throughout your body and negatively affect your immune system. This may make you more susceptible to infection.
A well-studied link also exists between smoking and many types of cancer. Smoking can increaseTrusted Source your risk of developing cancer almost anywhere in your body. This includes the following cancer types:
- bladder cancer
- acute myeloid leukemia
- cervical cancer
- colorectal cancer
- esophageal cancer
- kidney and uterine cancer
- laryngeal cancer
- liver cancer
- oropharyngeal cancer (which can include parts of your throat, tongue, tonsils, and soft palate)
- pancreatic cancer
- stomach or gastric cancer
- tracheal, bronchial, and lung cancer
If you quit smoking, the risk of developing most of these types of cancers decreases in about 10 to 20 yearsTrusted Source, depending on the type of cancer. However, your risk will still be higher than that of people who have never smoked.
Central nervous system
One of the ingredients in tobacco is the mood-altering drug nicotine. Nicotine is habit-forming and highly addictive. It is one reason why people find it so difficult to quit smoking.
Nicotine reaches your brain in seconds and can energize you for a while. But as the effect wears off, you may feel tired and crave more. Physical withdrawal from nicotine can impair your ability to think and make you feel negative emotions. These may include:
- anxiety
- irritability
- depression
Withdrawal can also cause headaches and trouble sleeping
Secondhand smoke
Smoking impacts your cardiovascular health and also affects the health of those around you who don’t smoke. Exposure to secondhand smoke carries the same risk to a nonsmoker as someone who does smoke. Risks can include:
- stroke
- heart attack
- heart disease
There are still many more dangers of smoking.
Quitting smoking helps in preventing the effects
