How Smoking Affects Your Health

Physical Health

Overall Health and Life Span

• Smokers take more sick days. They also have higher health care costs.
• Insurers can charge tobacco users up to 50% more than people who don’t use tobacco.
• Smoking can cut at least 10 years off your expected lifespan.
• Smoking is the leading cause of premature, preventable death in this country.

Cancer

• Smoking is the leading cause of cancer and death from cancer.
• Smoking can cause cancer almost anywhere in the body. Like the lungs, throat, mouth, liver, breasts, colon, pancreas, and stomach.

• Poisons in tobacco smoke can damage or change a cell’s DNA. DNA is the cell’s “instruction manual” that controls a cell’s normal growth and function. When DNA gets damaged, a cell can grow out of control and create a cancerous tumor.

Cardiovascular Disease

• Smoking increases the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke by two to four times.
• Even people who smoke fewer than five cigarettes a day can have early signs of cardiovascular disease.
• Smoking damages blood vessels and can make them get thick and narrow. This makes your heart have to beat faster, and your blood pressure goes up. Blood clots can also form.

Respiratory Disease

• Smoking causes lung diseases like emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
• Tobacco smoke can trigger an asthma attack or make an attack worse.
• Smokers are 12 to 13 times more likely to die from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease—which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis—than nonsmokers.