Smoking & Your Health – The Effects

Health & Fitness

Smoking is the single most preventable cause of death and disease the world over, over 4 million people a year die from smoking and cigarette smoking accounts at least for 30% of all cancer related deaths.
Smoking is the major cause of many types of cancer including, lung, larynx and oesophagus cancers and is one of the main contributing causes of cancer of the bladder, liver, cervix, stomach and colon.
It is thought that about 87% of those who develop lung cancer have smoked at some time in their lives and lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among both men and women.

What other risks does smoking pose?

Smoking contributes to the early onset of many other diseases including:

• Asthma
• Bronchitis
• Emphysema
• Stroke
• The severity of pneumonia
• The women’s reproductive health
• Can be a cause of miscarriage
• Cause premature birth
• Low birth weight

Health benefits gained from stopping smoking

• Stopping smoking has immediate health benefits for women and men of all ages, health benefits can be felt with or without smoking related diseases.
• People who have stopped smoking live longer than those who continue to smoke, for example a person who stopped smoking at the age of 50 has one half the risk of dying during the next 15 years as the person who continues to smoke.
• Stopping smoking will decrease the risk of lung cancer, heart attack and stroke.
• Women who stop smoking before they become pregnant or during the first 3 to 4 months reduce the risk of harming their unborn child.

The risk of developing lung cancer through smoking is related to a lifetime exposure to smoking, it is measured by the age you started smoking, how many cigarettes you smoked each day and the number of years that you have smoked.

The body’s healing time after stopping smoking

It is hard to stop smoking and there is no easy way out, there are nicotine patches and chewing gum in different strengths to help you quit but it is mostly down to sheer will power and wanting to quit to let your body begin to repair the damage you have done to it.

• Within 8 hours of having your last cigarette nicotine will start to leave your system, your heart rate and blood pressure will start to return to normal.
• Within 24 hours most of the carbon monoxide will have left your body giving the body better access to oxygen.
• Within 2 days all of the nicotine byproducts will have left your body, you will start to sleep better, eat better, the taste of food will improve as well as your sense of smell.
• Within a month your lungs will have started to improve, you will be able to walk uphill without the chest feeling tight and wheezy.
• After 9 weeks your blood pressure and blood circulation will have improved and you will feel a general sense of well being and your level of fitness will have improved.