Medical Review by Heidi Moawad
Summary
- Smoking is a leading cause of preventable death around the world. It contributes to health problems like cancer, heart disease, stroke, and more.
- Short-term effects of smoking include oxidative stress, increased inflammation, immune suppression, and respiratory symptoms. Long-term effects include cancers, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases like COPD, and weakened bone health.
- Quitting is difficult, since nicotine addiction makes it hard for most smokers to stop. While many adults want to quit, only about 1 in 10 succeed annually, often after multiple attempts.
- Professional support improves success rates. Tools like nicotine replacement therapy, prescription medications, counseling, and support groups can help you manage cravings and withdrawal symptoms.
Quitting smoking is a challenge for many—but you don’t have to do it alone
Smoking remains one of the leading causes of preventable death worldwide, causing over 7 million deaths each year—and over 480,000 in the US alone. It contributes to severe health issues like cancer, heart disease, stroke, and chronic respiratory conditions. But despite its dangers, quitting can be incredibly challenging because nicotine is highly addictive.
Recognizing the health effects of smoking can inspire you to quit, but you don’t have to do it alone. Below, we explain more about the short and long term impacts smoking can have on your life, as well as how professional support can help you quit and what to expect when you reach out to a healthcare practitioner.
Recognizing smoking’s health effects
Smoking affects nearly every organ in the body—including your heart, blood vessels, lungs, eyes, mouth, reproductive organs, bones, bladder, and digestive organs.
While some of these effects occur gradually over time, other types of damage can occur due to any amount of smoking at all. For that reason, it’s highly recommended that nonsmokers never start smoking, and that you take steps to quit as soon as possible if you currently smoke.
Short-term effects
The short-term effects of smoking tobacco products are less likely to be fatal than the long-term ones—but they can still impact your health in negative ways, which include making you more vulnerable to many of the diseases long-term smoking causes. These effects include:
- Oxidative stress: Smoking increases harmful chemicals in your body that can damage cells and speed up aging or disease.
- Depletion of antioxidant micronutrients: Smoking reduces vitamins your body needs to fight off damage from harmful substances.
- Increased inflammation: Smoking irritates your body, causing swelling and damage in different tissues.
- Compromised immune status: Smoking weakens your immune system, making it harder for your body to fight infections and heal wounds.
- Altered lipid metabolism: Smoking affects how your body processes fats, increasing bad cholesterol (LDL) and lowering good cholesterol (HDL). Learn more about cholesterol here.
- Lower self-rated health status: People who smoke often feel less healthy overall, often experiencing fatigue, pain, or other signs of poor well-being.
- Respiratory symptoms: Smoking causes coughing, mucus buildup, wheezing, and shortness of breath due to lung irritation and damage.
- Nicotine addiction: Nicotine in cigarettes creates a strong dependence, making it hard to quit because it affects brain chemicals tied to pleasure and cravings.
Long-term effects
The long-term health impacts of smoking are more severe and include some of the most well-documented health risks:
- Cancer: Smoking is linked to many types of cancer—including lung, colorectal, liver, bladder, cervical, and esophageal cancers.
- Precancerous lesions: Smoking contributes to growths that can develop into lung cancer and other types of cancer if untreated.
- Cardiovascular disease: Smoking damages blood vessels throughout your body, including the vessels in your heart and brain, increasing your risks of heart disease and stroke.
- Respiratory diseases: Damage to lung tissue from smoking leads to breathing difficulties and reduced oxygen flow.
- Eye disease: Smoking increases the risk of vascular disease in the eyes and damage to the nerves in the eyes, which can lead to vision loss.
- Rheumatoid arthritis: Smoking increases both your risk of arthritis and inflammation, which causes joint pain and damage. It can also make some medicines used to treat arthritis less effective.
- Bone health: Smoking weakens your bones. It also makes postmenopausal women more prone to low bone density, and it increases the risk of hip fractures in both men and women.
Quick facts about smoking’s impact
- Smoking accounts for nearly 1 in 5 deaths annually in the U.S.
- Smoking is the leading cause of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a condition involving damage to your airways or lungs.
- Secondhand smoke exposure kills an estimated 1.3 million non-smokers around the world every year.
Because of this, it’s not just a good idea to quit smoking for yourself—it’s also an important step for protecting the health and safety of people around you.
Seeking professional help
Most adults who smoke cigarettes actually want to quit, but only 1 in 10 manage to do it in any given year. That’s because they struggle to connect with resources that can help—like advice, assistance, and effective treatments. Most people who do manage to quit smoking also have to try more than once.
Because of all this, professional medical support can go a long way towards increasing your odds of success when you’re trying to stop smoking for good. A qualified healthcare practitioner can offer tools and guidance that improve your chances of leaving this habit behind.
When to contact a healthcare provider
You should reach out to a healthcare provider if you’re ready to make a serious effort to quit smoking. They’ll be able to help you make a plan, as well as deal with the stress or cravings you experience during the process.
Remember: the sooner you seek help, the sooner you can take steps to prevent further damage and improve your overall quality of life.
Professional approaches to help you stop smoking
When you seek professional help to quit smoking, your healthcare provider will make recommendations based on your specific needs and health status. Below are some of the strategies for quitting smoking that your personalized plan might include:
Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT)
NRT is a well-established method that helps make your transition away from smoking easier by providing your body with controlled amounts of nicotine that don’t have the same harmful chemicals found in cigarettes. Options include:
- Patches: These are worn on the skin and deliver a steady stream of nicotine throughout the day, reducing withdrawal symptoms and cravings.
- Lozenges: These dissolve in the mouth, offering a discreet way to manage cravings.
- Inhalers or nasal sprays: These mimic the hand-to-face action of smoking, which may be helpful for people who find the habit itself difficult to break.
- Nicotine gum: Chewed intermittently to release nicotine, gum provides a quick way to manage sudden cravings.
Combining NRT methods, such as using a patch alongside gum or lozenges, may also be more effective than using a single method alone.
Medications
Certain prescription medications can also be used to reduce cravings and manage withdrawal symptoms. Two commonly prescribed drugs include:
- Varenicline: This medication comes as a pill you take twice a day. It’s often a good option if you’ve tried other methods to quit smoking and they haven’t worked. This medicine requires a prescription, and you’ll want to take it with food or water to avoid nausea.
- Bupropion SR: Originally developed as an antidepressant, bupropion is also a prescription medication that’s FDA-approved to help people quit smoking. It can be combined with nicotine patches under your healthcare provider’s supervision, but may give you trouble sleeping and can impact your mood.
Your healthcare provider will discuss potential side effects and monitor your progress while taking these medications.
Counseling & Support Groups
Quitting smoking isn’t just a physical challenge—it’s a psychological one as well. For that reason, you may want to speak to an individual or attend group counseling as part of your plan to quit.
Counseling can help you remain accountable, control difficult feelings that come up during the process, and give you better odds of success. Using counseling while you’re taking medications is often considered the most effective way to quit smoking.
Find resources to help you quit smoking with Lemonaid Health
Smoking has severe consequences, but quitting can improve your health and reduce your risk of serious conditions like heart disease, cancer, and COPD. Recognizing these risks and deciding to seek professional help can set you on a sustainable path to recovery.
If you’re struggling to quit, don’t hesitate to reach out to a healthcare provider. With the right combination of tools and support, you can leave smoking behind and lead a healthier life.
Lemonaid Health offers convenient, online consultations with qualified healthcare providers to help you create a personalized quit plan.
