The Big Three Health Benefits Of Quitting

Greatly reduced risk of premature death:
Quitting lowers your risk of dying early by 50% within 5 years of quitting. After 15 years the risk is the same as if you had never smoked.

Reduced risk of lung cancer, emphysema, and bronchitis:
Your risk of lung cancer drops by 30%-50% after 10 years of being smoke-free. The longer you stay quit, the lower the risk. If you’ve begun to develop emphysema and or chronic bronchitis, quitting will essentially stop the progression of the disease and allow your respiratory system to compensate for damaged tissue.

Reduced risk of coronary heart disease:
The potential for smoking-related heart disease is cut in half one year after quitting. Within 15 years the risk is the same as that of someone who never smoked.

Health Risks of Smoking
Cigarettes are one of the few consumer products that aren't regulated. So, in order to determine the chemical makeup of cigarettes, we rely on the Federal Trade Commission’s studies of tobacco smoke. More than 40 of the chemicals the FTC found in cigarette smoke cause cancer in humans. The most dangerous components of tobacco are described below.

Nicotine:
Nicotine is a drug produced naturally in tobacco leaves. It’s nicotine that hooks you to cigarettes.[3] Studies have shown that nicotine can have as much power over your brain as heroin and cocaine. Nicotine gives your brain a quick sensation of pleasure and when it starts to wear off (usually within minutes after finishing a smoke) your brain starts wanting or craving more.

Nicotine increases heart rate and blood pressure, and decreases circulation by constricting blood vessels- this makes nicotine a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Nicotine promotes peptic ulcers; releases hormones that affect the central nervous system; interferes with nerve-muscle communication; and is directly responsible for a host of other health risks related to sexual functioning, fertility, fetal development, miscarriages and neonatal deaths, and brain functioning.

Carbon Monoxide
Cigarettes produce carbon monoxide, the same deadly odourless, colourless gas that comes out the tailpipe of your car or a faulty gas heater. In high enough concentrations it is deadly; in lower doses it causes shortness of breath and increased heart rate. Fortunately, the body is able to eliminate most of the carbon monoxide fairly quickly once you quit smoking. Most people who quit feel more energetic and less short of breath within just a few days of quitting.

Cyanide, Arsenic, and Other Nasty Stuff:
…like Formaldehyde, Benzene, Radon, and the radioisotope Polonium 210. The Environmental Protection Agency could arrest you for putting these poisons into the ground, yet tobacco advertising urges you to breathe them! When you smoke, small amounts of these awful chemicals are spread around and stored in every tissue and cell in your body where they can speed up the growth of cancer cells and degenerative diseases.

Tar
Tar comes from the burning of cigarettes and is one of the main components of cigarette smoke. In a solid form, tar is a sticky brown substance that causes yellow-brown stains on fingers, teeth, clothes, and furniture. If you smoke in your car, try cleaning the inside windshield sometime. Imagine what all that tar must look like in your lungs.

Risks for smokeless tobacco users:
Chewing smokeless tobacco puts many of the same chemicals and poisons into your body. That’s why people who chew tobacco for many years are 50 times more likely to get oral cancer, gum disease and lose their teeth than people who do not chew. The risk of other cancers, heart disease, and ulcerative colitis is 50-70% higher among chewers.

About Second-hand Smoke:
Cigarette smoke hurts many more people than just the smoker. Children under the age of one whose parents smoke are more than 2 times as likely than children of non-smokers to suffer asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, and other respiratory tract illnesses. A child’s lung tissue is especially vulnerable to damage, even when the concentration of second-hand smoke is relatively low. This means that smoking in a car, even with the windows open, is still dangerous to a child. The younger the child, the more vulnerable the lung tissue.

Fertility and Sexual Potency:
Cigarette ads try to make smoking sexy, but the opposite is true. The fertility rates of smoking women are at least 30% lower than those of non-smokers, and these women are up to 3 times as likely to miscarry when they do become pregnant. The children of smoking mothers are at significantly higher risk of premature birth, stillbirth, low birth weight, birth defects, and the development of childhood allergies and learning disabilities. The risk of impotence among smoking men is at least twice that of non-smokers. Smoking also reduces sperm density and motility, which can increase the risk of infertility.

Wrinkles, discoloured skin:
The models in the ads probably don’t smoke because many smokers in their 40s have facial wrinkles similar to those of non-smokers in their 60s. Smokers are almost 5 times more likely to develop more, and deeper, wrinkles than are non-smokers.