Tobacco smoke is harmful to nearly every organ in your body. Smoking not only damages your health, but also harms bystanders by polluting the air they breathe. Smoking reduces your life expectancy by about 13 to 14 years, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also reduces the life expectancy of nonsmokers who breathe tobacco smoke, although to a lesser degree.
Smoking Damages Your Lungs
Smoking causes 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths in men, and 80 percent of all lung cancer in women, according to the American Lung Association. In addition, smoking causes or contributes to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD. COPD refers to two diseases: emphysema and chronic bronchitis. The symptoms of COPD include an obstructed airway and difficulty in breathing. It was the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2006.
Smoking Harms Your Heart
The American Heart Association reports that smoking is one of the six major risk factors in coronary heart disease, which causes heart attacks. Smoking also exacerbates high blood pressure and lack of exercise, two of the other risk factors. Smoking directly causes high blood pressure, and indirectly prevents exercise by making it more difficult for the smoker to breathe. The use of oral contraceptives by women who smoke multiplies their risk of coronary heart disease.
Smoking Damages Other Organs
Smoking has been discovered to cause cancer of the larynx, esophagus and bladder. The U.S. Surgeon General's Office issued a report in 2006 listing many newly-discovered dangers of smoking. Smoking is now linked to leukemia, pneumonia, cataracts and cancers of the stomach, cervix and kidney. It also causes or contributes to periodontitis, reproductive complications, diabetic complications, hip fractures and complications following surgery.
Smoking Increases Risk Magnitude
Smokers drastically increase their risk for a number of diseases, say the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smokers are two to four times as likely to have a stroke or suffer coronary heart disease and 12 to 13 times as likely to die from COPD. Women are 13 times as likely to die from lung cancer, while men are 23 times as likely.
Passive Smoking Kills, Too
Passive smoking occurs when you breathe air contaminated by a smoker. The National Cancer Institute asserts that passive smoking is responsible for 3,000 lung cancer deaths among nonsmokers every year. The U.S. Surgeon General reports that nonsmokers living with smokers increase their odds of dying from lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent. Passive smoking causes a 25 to 30 percent increase in the risk of heart disease. It contributes to or exacerbates asthma, leukemia and brain tumors in children.
References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Health Effects of Cigarette Smoking
- American Lung Association: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Fact Sheet
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: New Surgeon General's Report Expands List of Diseases Caused by Smoking
- American Heart Association: Cigarette Smoking and Cardiovascular Diseases
- National Cancer Institute: Secondhand Smoke: Questions and Answers
