Smoking - health risks

Reviewed by Dr Gavin Petrie, consultant chest physician

You can eat five portions of fruit and veg a day and exercise regularly, but healthy behaviour
means little if you continue to smoke.

The message that 'smoking is bad for you' is an old one, so not everyone gives it their full
attention. Below we list the health risks of smoking.

Why quit smoking?

Term watch

‘Cardiovascular’ means the heart and circulation.

Cardiovascular disease causes:

• poor circulation
• angina (chest pains)
• heart attacks
• stroke.

Most people know that smoking can cause lung cancer, but it can also cause many other
cancers and illnesses.

Smoking kills around 114,000 people in the UK each year.

Of these deaths, about 42,800 are from smoking-related cancers, 30,600 from cardiovascular
disease and 29,100 die slowly from emphysema and other chronic lung diseases.

How do cigarettes damage health?

Cigarettes contain more than 4000 chemical compounds and at least 400 toxic substances.

When you inhale, a cigarette burns at 700°C at the tip and around 60°C in the core. This heat
breaks down the tobacco to produce various toxins.

As a cigarette burns, the residues are concentrated towards the butt.

The products that are most damaging are:

• tar, a carcinogen (substance that causes cancer)

• nicotine is addictive and increases cholesterol levels in your body
• carbon monoxide reduces oxygen in the body
• components of the gas and particulate phases cause chronic obstructive pulmonary
disorder (COPD).
The damage caused by smoking is influenced by:

• the number of cigarettes smoked

• whether the cigarette has a filter
• how the tobacco has been prepared.

Smoking affects how long you live

Research has shown that smoking reduces life expectancy by seven to eight years.

Did you know?

On average, each cigarette shortens a smoker's life by around 11 minutes.

Of the 300 people who die every day in the UK as a result of smoking, many are
comparatively young smokers.

The number of people under the age of 70 who die from smoking-related diseases exceeds the
total figure for deaths caused by breast cancer, AIDS, traffic accidents and drug addiction.

Non-smokers and ex-smokers can also look forward to a healthier old age than smokers.

Major diseases caused by smoking

Cardiovascular disease

Cardiovascular disease is the main cause of death due to smoking.

Hardening of the arteries is a process that develops over years, when cholesterol and other fats
deposit in the arteries, leaving them narrow, blocked or rigid. When the arteries narrow
(atherosclerosis), blood clots are likely to form.

Smoking accelerates the hardening and narrowing process in your arteries: it starts earlier and
blood clots are two to four times more likely.

Cardiovasular disease can take many forms depending on which blood vessels are involved,
and all of them are more common in people who smoke.

A fatal disease

Blood clots in the heart and brain are the most common causes of sudden death.

• Coronary thrombosis: a blood clot in the arteries supplying the heart, which can lead
to a heart attack. Around 30 per cent are caused by smoking.
• Cerebral thrombosis: the vessels to the brain can become blocked, which can lead to
collapse, stroke and paralysis.
• If the kidney arteries are affected, then high blood pressure or kidney failure results.
• Blockage to the vascular supply to the legs may lead to gangrene and amputation.
Smokers tend to develop coronary thrombosis 10 years earlier than non-smokers, and make
up 9 out of 10 heart bypass patients.