Health Tip

Health Effects of Tobacco Use

       Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, causing more than 440,000 deaths each year and resulting in an annual cost of more than $75 billion in direct medical costs. More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined.
       Nationally, smoking results in more than 5.6 million years of potential life lost each year. Adults who smoke cigarettes die an average of 13-14 years earlier than nonsmokers. Approximately 80 percent of adult smokers started smoking before the age of 18. Every day, nearly 4,000 people less than 18 years of age try their first cigarette.
       The adverse health effects from cigarette smoking account for nearly one of every five deaths each year in the United States. Lung cancer, heart disease, and the chronic lung diseases of emphysema, bronchitis, and chronic airways obstruction are responsible for the largest number of smoking-related deaths.

• Cigarette smoking increases the risk for many types of cancer, including cancers of the lip, oral cavity, and pharynx; esophagus; pancreas; larynx; lung; uterine cervix; urinary bladder; and kidney. Pipe smoking and cigar smoking increase the risk of dying from cancers of the lung, esophagus, larynx, and oral cavity. Smokeless tobacco use increases the risk of developing oral cancer.
• The risk of dying from lung cancer is 22 times higher among men who smoke cigarettes and about 12 times higher among women who smoke compared with people who have never smoked.
• Cigarette smokers are two to four times more likely to develop coronary heart disease than nonsmokers. Cigarette smoking nearly doubles a person’s risk for stroke. Smoking cigarettes reduces a person’s circulation by narrowing the blood vessels. Smokers are more than 10 times as likely as nonsmokers to develop peripheral vascular disease.
• Cigarette smoking is associated with a ten times increase in the risk of dying from chronic obstructive lung disease. Approximately 90 percent of all deaths from chronic obstructive lung diseases are attributable to cigarette smoking.
• Cigarette smoking has many adverse reproductive and early childhood effects, including an increased risk for infertility, preterm delivery, stillbirth, low-birth weight, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
• Postmenopausal women who smoke have lower bone density than women who have never smoked. Women who smoke have an increased risk for hip fractures than nonsmokers.

Click here to get tips on quitting.