Smoking causes high blood pressure, lowers your ability to exercise, and makes your blood more likely to clot. It also lowers HDL good cholesterol levels in the blood. All of these are risk factors for heart attacks and strokes. Smoking is a major risk factor for peripheral arterial disease PAD. In PAD, plaque builds up in the arteries that carry blood to the head, organs, and limbs.
This increases your risk of heart disease, heart attack, and stroke. Smoking increases the risk of having an aortic aneurysm. This is a balloon-like bulge in the aorta, the main artery carrying blood from the heart to other organs. It is caused by a weakening of the wall of the aorta.
Aortic aneurysms can grow larger over time, and they can be life threatening if they rupture break open. Smoking can cause or worsen poor blood flow to the arms and legs, which is called peripheral vascular disease or PVD. For example, women who smoke are more likely to have trouble getting pregnant. Smoking while pregnant can also lead to health problems that can affect both mother and baby. Women who smoke while pregnant have a higher risk of:. Babies of mothers who smoke during and after pregnancy are also more likely to die from sudden infant death syndrome SIDS.
Smoking can damage blood vessels anywhere in the body. Blood flow in the penis is a key part of male erections. Men who smoke have a higher risk of erectile dysfunction. This risk increases the more they smoke and the longer they smoke. Smoking can also affect sperm, which can reduce fertility and increase the risk for miscarriages and birth defects.
Here are a few examples of other ways smoking tobacco can affect your health:. Smoking-related illness can make it harder for a person to breathe, get around, work, or play.
This is true regardless of their age or how long they have been smoking. Visit the Benefits of Quitting page for more information about how quitting smoking can improve your health. Department of Health and Human Services. Atlanta: U. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 08 ; Actual Causes of Death in the United States. Rockville MD : U. A Report of the Surgeon General external icon. For Further Information. Fact Sheets. What's this. Related CDC Sites.
Social Media. Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website. Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website. Carbon monoxide from inhaled cigarette smoke also contributes to a lack of oxygen, making the heart work even harder.
This increases the risk of heart disease, including heart attacks. Smoking makes your blood thick and sticky.
The stickier the blood, the harder your heart must work to move it around your body. Sticky blood is also more likely to form blood clots that block blood flow to your heart, brain, and legs. Over time, thick, sticky blood damages the delicate lining of your blood vessels. This damage can increase your risk for a heart attack or stroke.
Smoking increases the cholesterol and unhealthy fats circulating in the blood, leading to unhealthy fatty deposits. Over time, cholesterol, fats, and other debris build up on the walls of your arteries. This buildup narrows the arteries and blocks normal blood flow to the heart, brain, and legs.
Blocked blood flow to the heart or brain can cause a heart attack or stroke. Blockage in the blood vessels of your legs could result in the amputation of your toes or feet.
Smokers' lungs experience inflammation in the small airways and tissues of your lungs. This can make your chest feel tight or cause you to wheeze or feel short of breath. Continued inflammation builds up scar tissue, which leads to physical changes to your lungs and airways that can make breathing hard.
Years of lung irritation can give you a chronic cough with mucus. Smoking destroys the tiny air sacs, or alveoli, in the lungs that allow oxygen exchange. When you smoke, you are damaging some of those air sacs. When enough alveoli are destroyed, the disease emphysema develops. Emphysema causes severe shortness of breath and can lead to death. Your airways are lined with tiny brush like hairs, called cilia.
The cilia sweep out mucus and dirt so your lungs stay clear. Smoking temporarily paralyzes and even kills cilia. This makes you more at risk for infection. Smokers get more colds and respiratory infections than non-smokers. Every single puff of a cigarette causes damages to your DNA. Your body tries to repair the damage that smoking does to your DNA, but over time, smoking can wear down this repair system and lead to cancer like lung cancer.
One-third of all cancer deaths are caused by tobacco. Need another reason why smoking is bad for you? Bigger belly.
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