You don't have to search long to find negative facts about smoking cigarettes. Despite its enormous popularity--more than 45 million Americans are smokers according to the American Heart Association--it's a habit rife with negative effects. Of course, only you can decide if you're going to smoke, or if you've already started, whether you're going to quit. But there's no debating that there are plenty of negatives involved with smoking.
Smoking is Deadly
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 440,000 deaths in the United States each year are smoking-associated. That equates to 50 people dying every hour of every day. The American death rate is two to three times higher among smokers than non-smokers, according to the CDC, which also reports that the average life expectancy of a smoker is a full 12 years less than that of someone who doesn't smoke.
Smoking Causes Cancer.
Tobacco smoke contains more than 4,000 chemical compounds. More than 60 of these are known or suspected to cause cancer. Lung cancer is the most preventable form of cancer--prevented by not smoking--and 87 percent of lung cancer deaths are the result of smoking, according to the American Cancer Society. Overall, 30 percent of cancer-related deaths are due to smoking, according to the ACS.
Cancer Isn't the Only Fatal Side Effect.
Cancer is hardly the only potentially fatal side effect of smoking. Smokers are as much as six times more likely to suffer a heart attack than nonsmokers, according to the National Cancer Institute. Smoking also causes most cases of chronic obstructive lung disease, including bronchitis and emphysema.
Smoking During Pregnancy is Dangerous.
Women who smoke during pregnancy are putting their unborn babies at risk. According to the American Lung Association, between 20 percent and 30 percent of babies with low birth weights are born so because their mothers smoked during pregnancy. Additionally, the Lung Association says that 14 percent of U.S. preterm deliveries are caused by smoking and 10 percent of cases of infant deaths are caused by smoking.
Smoking Hurts More than Just Smokers
According to the National Cancer Institute, approximately 38,000 deaths each year are caused by exposure to second-hand smoke. Also known as "environmental tobacco smoke" and "passive smoking," NCI reports that every year it causes between 50,000 and 300,000 lung infections in children younger than 18 months of age, more than 750,000 middle ear infections in children and increases in the number and severity of asthma attacks for between 200,000 and 1 million children with asthma.
