Smoking Facts You Need To Know

Read this fact sheet before you smoke your next cigarette. The health benefits to be gained from quitting, both instantaneously and in the long-term, are too great to be ignored, and so are the dangers of continuing to smoke.

The financial impact alone of smoking is simply staggering. Imagine what you could buy yourself or your family with the money you spend each year on cigarettes. Now consider this-it is estimated that almost $80 million is spent per year in the United States to treat conditions caused by nicotine.

Important Smoking Facts

- Smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths each year.

- Quitting smoking provides immediate health benefits as well as more improvements over the long term. Minutes after smoking your last cigarette, your blood pressure and heart rate will both return to within their normal limits as your circulation also improves. 24 hours later your risk of having a heart attack decreases, and a few days after that, tissue within the lungs that isn't permanently damaged will begin the process of trying to heal.

- 15 completely smoke-free years and your risks of suffering a stroke are no longer significantly higher than those of someone who has never had one cigarette.

- Nonsmokers have a significantly higher energy level than smokers as the carbon monoxide levels in the blood stream are affected by the smoke, causing one to feel tired and lethargic for no apparent reason.

- Smoking not only causes lung cancer but also cancer of the mouth, larynx, pharynx, pancreas, and bladder.

- Cigarette smoke causes diseases and illnesses such as emphysema, chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), depression, diabetes, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer's disease.

- Sinus congestion or infections, chronic coughing, and shortness of breath will all eventually drastically improve or even completely disappear after becoming a non-smoker.

- Smoking during pregnancy seriously increases the risk of a stillbirth, as well as sudden infant death

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syndrome (SIDS), and causes a decrease in birth weight.

Little Known Smoking Facts

- One in every four men smokes despite these numerous dangers.

- Secondhand smoke, also referred to as environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), is responsible for over 3,000 deaths each and every year in the United States.

- Smoking impairs fertility in both men and women.

- One cigarette contains over 4,000 chemicals including formaldehyde, insecticide, acetone(which you may recognize as nail polish remover) and hydrazine(rocket fuel.)

- 8 out of 10 smokers tried their first cigarette before turning 18.

- 8 out 10 smokers also report having extreme withdrawal symptoms when attempting to quit smoking, and the drug nicotine has been likened to heroin in terms of its addictive qualities.

- Nicotine replacement therapy in the form of patches gums, and lozenges is one of the more successful methods of beating the habit, along with prescription meds like carenicline and buproprion.

- Each day nearly 5,000 teenagers begin smoking.

Brent Crouch is the owner of BrentCrouch.com and StopSmokingEtc.com. He has dedicated this site to providing information on ways to quit smoking and provides excellent information on nicotine withdrawal.