The American Cancer Society, or ACS, states that about 21 percent of U.S. residents were smoking in 2008. Some smoke a moderate amount, while others are heavy cigarette users. Those who smoke as few as one to four cigarettes a day still get cancer and heart disease more frequently and die younger than non-smokers, according to the ACS, but heavy smokers face even more risks.
Definition
Definitions of heavy smoking vary, but Dr. Arto Strandberg of the University of Helsinki, who did a study on smokers' quality of life, set a baseline of smoking more than 20 cigarettes per day. Heavy smokers in the study died an average of 10 years before their nonsmoking counterparts, and there was a direct correlation between poor health and the number of cigarettes smoked.
Physical Effects
All cigarette smoking eventually causes physical effects on the lungs and heart, but heavy smoking adds genetic mutations. Zemin Zhang, a California researcher with the Genentech biotechnology arm of the Roche drug company, explains that one heavy smoker, who smoked 25 cigarettes a day for 15 years, had a lung tumor with 50,000 genetic mutations. Zhang states that every three cigarettes may cause a mutation, which means the effect is much worse for heavy smokers, but some of the problem may be offset by the body's DNA repair mechanisms. This defense system gets less efficient over the years, so the damage is greater for people who smoke heavily over a period of many years.
Mental Effects
Researchers with the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare found that heavy smoking may have mental effects. They studied middle-aged and elderly men who smoked 20 to 30 cigarettes per day and discovered that they committed suicide 1.4 times more often than men who smoked less than one pack per day or who didn't smoke at all. Men who smoked more than 40 cigarettes each day were 1.7 times more likely to take their own lives. The researchers did not speculate on why heavy smokers face this higher suicide risk.
Prevention
The best choice for health improvement is to stop smoking completely, but researchers have discovered that heavy smokers who cut down on their cigarette use do get some physical benefits. For example, Dr. Nina Godtfredsen, a researcher at the Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark, found that people who dropped their smoking level from 20 cigarettes a day to 10 had a 27 percent decrease in their lung cancer risk.
Misconceptions
Some heavy smokers use low-tar or low-nicotine cigarette brands in the mistaken belief that they are less harmful. The National Cancer Institute warns that these cigarettes offer no protection from health risks because smokers tend to puff them more rapidly and inhale more deeply to get extra nicotine. Many also increase the number of these cigarettes that they smoke.
References
- National Cancer Institute: The Truth About Light Cigarettes, Questions and Answers
- Reuters: U. S. Gene Study Reveals Toll of Heavy Smoking
- Medical News Today: Heavy Middle-Aged and Elderly Smokers Have Higher Suicides Rates
- e! Science News: Men Who Never Smoke Live Longer, Better Lives Than Heavy Smokers
- Medical News Today: Heavy Smokers Who Halve the Number of Cigarettes They Have a Day Reduce Their Lung Cancer Risk
