Many people begin tobacco use with the intention of making the habit a short-term proposition. Former smokers who quit may relapse with a goal in mind, such as smoking until a personal crisis has ended. The reality is that many smokers are physically or mentally unable to keep these commitments. The health problems that develop in a brief term of cigarette smoking can either progress along with further tobacco use or persist even after the smoker calls it quits.
Nicotine Addiction
Cigarette smoking can cause nicotine addiction in young or older smokers in just a few tries, the Nemours Foundation reports. Within a relatively short time, a dependence can develop, so that the smoker is compelled to seek more of nicotine's pleasurable effects through smoking another cigarette.
This addictive behavior causes the body's response to nicotine to repeat several times a day, the National Institute on Drug Abuse points out. Continually elevated heart rate, breathing and blood pressure will begin to damage the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, even in the short term.
Breathing Obstruction
Stress on the lungs and airways occurs immediately during tobacco use, according to the U.S. Surgeon General's 2010 report on the health problems caused by cigarette smoking. Inhaling cigarette smoke paralyzes the cilia, tiny filaments in the bronchial tubes that normally clear these airways.
Some of this damage heals overnight when a person is not smoking. But the Nemours Foundation relates that throat irritation and coughing occur in short-term smokers, as dirt and toxins are allowed to accumulate in the bronchi and lungs.
Respiratory Infections
Bronchial stress, along with immune system suppression caused by smoking, makes respiratory infections more likely. Smokers experience a higher incidence of colds, flus, pneumonia and acute bronchitis, according to a 2004 U.S. Surgeon General's report.
Aggravated Heart and Lung Symptoms
Weaker lungs and reduced immunity can exacerbate existing asthma or other respiratory symptoms, especially in young smokers. Nicotine's daily stress on the cardiovascular system combines with reduced oxygen transfer from the impaired lungs to limit exercise tolerance.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) note that children and adolescent tobacco users risk poorer physical fitness than their nonsmoking peers. Cigarette smoking also poses serious health problems for people with existing heart conditions.
Chronic Bronchitis
Short-term smokers face an elevated risk for potentially fatal chronic bronchitis, an early form of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). As damage to the bronchi compounds, the cilia no longer rejuvenate overnight. Without their cleansing action, the airways can become scarred and inflamed.
The American Lung Association reports that the "smoker's cough" that typifies chronic bronchitis attempts to take the cilias' place in driving out excess mucus in the airways. Bronchitis health problems include difficulty breathing that can cause death.
