Smoking can cause long-term negative effects on the body, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.
Smoking is dangerous to your health. It can harm nearly every organ in your body and increase your risk of certain health conditions like glaucoma, cancer, and lung disease.
It can also increase inflammation throughout your body and negatively affect your immune system, making you more susceptible to infection.
The good news is quitting smoking can reverse many of these effects on your body.
Learn more about the harmful effects of smoking on the body.
A well-studied link also exists between smoking and many types of cancer. Smoking
If you quit smoking, the risk of developing most of these types of cancers decreases in about
One of the ingredients in tobacco is the mood-altering drug nicotine. Nicotine is habit-forming and highly addictive. It is one reason why people find it so difficult to quit smoking.
Nicotine reaches your brain in seconds and can energize you for a while. But as the effect wears off, you may feel tired and crave more. Physical withdrawal from nicotine
Vision
Smoking long-term can affect your vision and optic nerve. It may lead you to develop certain conditions that affect the eyes. These can include:
Respiratory system
Smoking damages the airways, air sacs (alveoli) in the lungs, and cilia, which are tiny hair-like structures that prevent dirt and mucus from entering your lungs.
Lung damage
Smoking
- permanent lung tissue loss
- a chronic cough
- damage to the respiratory system
- increased chance of developing certain infections that affect the lungs, like tuberculosis and pneumonia
Cancer risk
People who smoke are
- emphysema
- chronic bronchitis
- chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
- lung cancer
- adult-onset asthma
Withdrawal from tobacco products can cause temporary congestion and respiratory discomfort as your lungs and airways begin to heal. Increased mucus production right after quitting smoking may be a positive sign that your respiratory system is recovering.
According to the CDC,
Smoking
- heart
- arteries
- blood vessels
Nicotine causes blood vessels to tighten, which restricts the flow of blood. Smoking also raises blood pressure, weakens blood vessel walls, and increases your risk of blood clots.
This can raise your risk for cardiovascular disease.
Secondhand smoke
Smoking impacts your cardiovascular health and also affects the health of those around you who don’t smoke. Exposure to secondhand smoke carries the same risk to a nonsmoker as someone who does smoke.
Smoking cigarettes can affect your skin, hair, and nails.
Skin
Substances in tobacco smoke can change the structure of your skin. This
- premature skin damage associated with aging
- wrinkles
- delayed wound healing
- developing hidradenitis suppurativa
- developing psoriasis
- developing certain types of skin cancer
Smoking
Hair
There’s also
- vasoconstriction
- DNA damage
- generation of free radicals
- hormonal effects
Nails
It may also affect your fingernails and toenails and increase the likelihood of fungal nail infections.
Cigarette smoking can affect the digestive system in multiple ways.
Cancer risk
Smoking
- mouth
- throat
- larynx
- esophagus
- stomach
- pancreas
- colon and rectum
Type 2 diabetes
Smoking also has an effect on insulin, making it more likely that you’ll develop insulin resistance. People who smoke cigarettes have a
Type 2 diabetes tends to develop faster in people who smoke than people who do not smoke, as it may be harder to control.
Periodontal disease
Smoking can
Quitting smoking
The good news is that quitting smoking can reduce many risk factors for the conditions and diseases mentioned above.
If you smoke and are thinking about quitting, visit our smoking cessation resource center, which has tips for how to stop smoking, information on smoking cessation therapies, and more.
Smoking while pregnant
Children whose parents or caregivers smoke cigarettes may also experience certain health conditions at a higher rate than children whose caregivers do not smoke. These can include:
- coughing
- wheezing
- asthma attacks
- pneumonia
- tuberculosis
- bronchitis
Smoking cigarettes increases your risk for health conditions that can affect the whole body.
But quitting smoking reduces many of these risks. It also has both short and long-term benefits. Since smoking affects every body system, finding a way to quit can help you live a longer and healthier life.