Smoking Causes Problems Other Than Lung Cancer and Heart Disease

The fact that smoking causes lung disease and oral cancer isn't exactly news, and only tobacco
industry executives would express (feigned) shock at being told. But cigarettes can lead to a
whole slew of problems involving every system of your tar-filled body, and most people aren'l
aware of this.
The American Council on Science and Health's book Cigarettes: What the Warning Label
Doesn't Tell You is the first comprehensive look at the medical evidence of all types of harm
triggered by smoking. Referencing over 450 articles from medical journals and reviewed by 45
experts — mainly medical doctors and PhDs — if this book doesn't convince you to quit, nothing
will.
Among some of the things that cancer sticks do:
Besides cancers of the head, neck, and lungs, ciggies are especially connected to cancers of the
bladder, kidney, pancreas, and cervix. Newer evidence is adding leukemia and colorectal cancer
to the list. Recent studies have also found at least a doubling of risk among smokers for cancers
of the vulva and penis, as well as an eight-fold risk of anal cancer for men and a nine-fold risk
for women.
Smoking trashes the ability of blood to flow, which results in a sixteen-fold greater risk of
peripheral vascular disease. This triggers pain in the legs and arms, which often leads to an
inability to walk and, in some instances, gangrene and/or amputation. Seventy-six percent of all
cases are caused by smoking, more than for any other factor, including diabetes, obesity, and
high blood pressure.
Smokers are at least two to three times more likely to develop the heartbreak of psoriasis. Even
if that doesn't happen, they'll look old before their time. The American Council tells us,
"Smokers in their 40s have facial wrinkles similar to those of nonsmokers in their 60s."
Smokers require more anesthesia for surgery, and they recover much more slowly. In fact,
wounds of all kinds take longer to heal for smokers.
Puffing helps to weaken bones, soft tissue, and spinal discs, causing all kinds of musculo-
skeletal pain, more broken bones and ruptured discs, and longer healing time. "A non-smoker's
leg heals an average of 80 percent faster than a smoker's broken leg."
Smoking is heavily related to osteoporosis, the loss of bone mass, which results in brittle bones
and more breaks.
Cigarettes interfere with your ability to have kids. "The fertility rates of women who smoke are
about 30 percent lower than those of nonsmokers." If you're an idiot who continues to smoke
while you're expecting — even in this day and age, some people, including stars Catherine Zeta-

Jones and Courtney Love, do this — you increase the risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, premature
birth, low birth weight, underdevelopment, and cleft pallet. If your child is able to survive
outside the womb, it will have a heavily elevated risk of crib death (SIDS), allergies, and
intellectual impairment.
Smoking also does a serious number on sperm, resulting in more deformed cells, less ability of
them to swim, smaller loads, and a drastic decrease in overall number of the little fellas. The
larger population of misshapen sperm probably increases the risk of miscarriages and birth
defects, so even if mommy doesn't smoke, daddy could still cause problems. What's more,
because smoking hurts blood flow, male smokers are at least twice as likely to be unable to get it
up.
Besides shutting down blood flow to the little head, smoking interferes with the blood going to
the big head in both sexes. This causes one quarter of all strokes. It also makes these strokes
more likely to occur earlier in life and more likely to be fatal.
"Depression — whether viewed as a trait, a symptom or a diagnosable disorder — is over-
represented among smokers." Unfortunately, it's unclear how the two are related. Does smoking
cause depression, or does depression lead to smoking? Or, most likely, do the two feed on each
other in a vicious cycle?
"Smokers experience sudden hearing loss an average of 16 years earlier than do never
smokers."
Smokers and former smokers have an increased risk of developing cataracts, abnormal eye
movements, inflammation of the optic nerve, permanent blindness from lack of blood flow, and
the most severe form of macular degeneration.
Lighting up increases plaque, gum disease, and tooth loss.
It also makes it likelier that you'll develop diabetes, stomach ulcers, colon polyps, and Crohn's
disease.
Smoking trashes the immune system in myriad ways, with the overall result being that you're
more susceptible to disease and allergies.
And let's not forget that second-hand smoke has horrible effects on the estimated 42 percent of
toddlers and infants who are forced to inhale it in their homes:
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), children's "passive smoking,"
as it is called, results in hundreds of thousands of cases of bronchitis, pneumonia, ear
infections, and worsened asthma. Worse yet, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention estimates that 702 children younger than one year die each year as a result of
sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), worsened asthma and serious respiratory infections.

It's very surprising to note that smoking can have a few health benefits. Because they zap
women's estrogen levels, cigarettes can lead to less endometriosis and other conditions related to
the hormone. Smoking also decreases the risk of developing osteoarthritis in the knees, perhaps
because the pliability of thin bones takes some pressure off of the cartilage. And because it jacks
up dopamine levels, it helps ward off Parkinson's disease. Of course, these benefits seem to be
side effects of the hazards of smoking, so the trade-off hardly seems worth it.