Skin
Smokers appear to develop face wrinkles earlier than non smokers.
Smoking reduces blood flow to the skin and may damage tissues (collagen and elastin) that help keep skin looking young.
Smoking is also linked to a range of skin problems, such as psoriasis and hidradentis suppourtativa (inflammation of sweat glans in the groin and underarm regions, producing painful boils or abscesses).
Ears
Smokers are more likely to suffer hearing loss than non-smokers, including hearing loss due to loud noise.
Burns
Children can be accidently burnt by other people's cigarettes, lighters and lighter fluid.
Approximately one in four fire deaths occur in fires started by cigarettes.
Brain
40% of all strokes in individuals under 65 years of age are caused by smoking.
Cigarette smoking is a cause of stroke, damage to the brain due to problems with blood flow or the escape of blood into the brain tissue.
After you quit, your risk of stroke decreases steadily. After fifteen years your risk is close to that of someone who has never smoked.
Heart and Blood
40% of heart disease in those under 65 years of age is caused by smoking
Smokers have two to three times the risk of suffering sudden cardiac death than non-smokers.
Smoking temporarily raises heart rate and blood pressure, while reducing the ability of blood to carry oxygen. Smoking makes the walls of your blood vessels sticky, causing a build up of dangerous fatty deposits.
Cancer
80% of cases of lung cancer are due to smoking.
Approximately one fifth of all cancer deaths in Australia can be attributed to smoking.
Smoking also causes cancer of the tongue, mouth, throat, nose, nasal, sinus, voice box, oesophagus pancreas, stomach, liver, kidney, bladder, ureter, bowel, ovary, cervix and bone marrow (myeloid leukemia).
Back
Smoking is among the risk factors for back pain, for both adolescents and adults.
Stomach and gut
Smoking causes cancer of the stomach, bowel, and other organs involved in digesting food.
After quitting, your risk for cancer of the stomach, pancreas, and oesophagus goes down compared to a continuing smoker, and continues to decrease the longer you stay stopped.
Smoking causes peptic ulcer disease in people who also are infected with H. pylori, a common bacterial infection. It increases the risk of developing Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel condition.
Smoking has a number of damaging effects on your stomach and gut, such as increasing acidity and reflux, which stop shortly after you quit smoking
Penis
Men who smoke are more likely to develop problems with getting or maintaining an erection.
This may be due to the effects of smoking on blood flow and damage to the blood vessels of the penis. The earlier men quit smoking, the greater their changes of preventing or recording from this problem.
Muscles & Bones
Carbon monoxide replaces some of the oxygen in your blood, and makes it harder for oxygen to transfer into muscle cells.
As there is less oxygen available for your muscles, they tire more quickly. After you quit for 24 hours, the level of carbon monoxide in your blood drops dramatically.
Smoking gradually decreases your bone density over the course of your life. This leads to low bone density, especially for older women. Smoking increases the risk of hip fractures in both men and women.
Surgery
Doctors strongly recommend stopping smoking at lease eight weeks before surgery.
If you smoke, you will have much higher risks for serious complications during and after surgery. Quitting completely is the only way to stop and reverse the damage done by cigarettes.
Lungs
80% of cases of lung cancer are due to smoking
Lung cancer is the most common form of cancer caused by smoking.
The earlier you quit, the smaller your risk of dying from lung cancer. For example, quitting at 50 years old more than halves your risk over 25 years compared to continued smoking. Cigarette smoke contains many chemicals that interfere with the body's method of filtering air and cleaning out the lungs.
Breastfeeding
If you are a breastfeeding mother and you smoke it's not ideal, but it's better than not breastfeeding.
Some of the nicotine and other poisons in cigarettes are passed from a mother who smokes to the baby through breast milk. However, breast milk provides all the food needs for the first six months of a baby's life and helps protects the baby against infection.
If you are having trouble quitting try not to smoke just before or during feeds - if you can, go outdoors to smoke.
Fingers
The tar in cigarette smoke collects on the fingers and fingernails, staining them yellowish-brown.
Smoking can damage blood vessel walls, making it more difficult for the heart to pump blood to the hands and feet. In serious cases, this can lead to peripheral vascuil;ar disease (PVD). This may result in servere pain, espectially when exercising. It can also lead to gangerne and amputation.
Quitting reducaes your risk of developing PVD, compared to a continuing smoker. Quitting slows down the worsening of PVD in those who have disease: they live longer, have less pain and are more likely to avoid amputation.
Diabetes
People with diabetes who smoke have higher blood sugar levels and less control over their blood sugar levels than non-smokers with diabetes.
Smoking can bring on illness associated with diabetes earlier, causing disability and death. Young adult smokers with diabetes are two to three times more likely to be sick than non-smokers with diabetes.
If you have diabetes and smoke, quitting smoking is one of the best things you can do to manage your diabetes and stay healthier for longer.
(This information applies to type 1 diabetes - Insulin dependent diabetes.)
Women's health
Women who smoke face extra problems.
This includes:
- increased risk of heart attack and stroke if you smoke and take the pill. This risk increases significantly as you get older.
- difficulty becoming pregnant
- missed periods and more painful periods
- increases risk of cancer of the cervix and ovary
- loss of bone density in older women, and increased risk of hip fractures
- early menopause
Quitting stops further damage from cigarette smoke and many of these problems appear to reverse.
Legs
Smoking can damage blood vessel walls, making it more difficult for the heart to pump blood to the hands and feet.
In serious cases, this can lead to peripheral vascular disease (PVD). PVD most commonly occurs in the legs and feet, but it can also develop in the arms and hands.
This may result in severe pain, especially when exercising. It can also lead to gangrene and amputation.
Quitting reduces your risk of developing PVD, compared to a continuing smoker/ Quitting slows down the worsening of PVD in those who have the disease: they live longer, have less pain and more likely to avoid amputation.
SIDS
Smoking during pregnancy and exposing the infant to tobacco smoke in the first year of ife is one of the major risk factors for sudden infanct death syndrome (SIDS or cot death).
Infants exposed to their mother's secondhand smoke after birth have nearly two and a half times the risk of dying from SIDS compared with unexposed infants.
Child's ears
Children of smokers are more likely to contract 'glue ear', which is an infection and swelling of the ear.
'Glue ear' is the most common cause of hearing loss in children, and may lead to speech problems.
Child's lungs
Seondhand smoke is more dangerous for young children than adults because they have smaller and more delicate lungs, which are still developing.
The children of parents who smoke have higher rates of lung or airways infections such as bronchitis, bronchiotis and pneumonia during their first two years of life, compared to children on non-smokers.
The best way to protect children from secondhand smoke is to quit smoking. The next best way is by parents ensuring a total ban on smoking inside the home or car.
Poisoning
Nicotine on its own can be a poisonous substance.
During the 1920s and 1930s, when large quantities of nicotine were used in insecticides, poisonings were common.
Despite nicotine poisoning being uncommon these days, a child who accidently eats a cigarette, or cigarette butt, can become very sick.
Mouth
Smoking is a major cause of cancers to the mouth and throat.
Provided cancer is not already present, stopping smoking hyalves the risk of mouth and throat cancer within five years. After ten to twenty years your risk of mouth cancer is similar to someone who has never smoked
Smoking causes dental disease that affects the gum and bone that support the teeth. Quitting reduces your risk of this disease compared to a continuing smoker.
Eyes
Smoking causes macular degeneration, which is the leading cause of blindness in Australians over 40 years old.
Stopping smoking is the only way to help prevent this condition.
Nose
Smoking causes cancer of the nose, the nasal sinus and cavity behind the nose.
Smoking also affects your ability to smell. After you quit, your sense of smell improves slowly over time.