How Quitting Smoking Improves Your Health

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Quitting smoking can help most of the major parts of your body: from your brain to your DNA.

 Brain

Broken Addiction Cycle

Quitting smoking can re-wire your brain and help break the cycle of addiction. The large number of nicotine receptors in your brain will return to normal levels after about a month of being quit.

Head and Face

Sharp Hearing

Quitting smoking will keep your hearing sharp. Remember, even mild hearing loss can cause problems (like not hearing directions correctly and doing a task wrong).

Better Vision

Quitting smoking will improve your night vision and help preserve your overall vision by stopping the damage that smoking does to your eyes.

Clean Mouth

Nobody likes a dirty mouth. After a few days without cigarettes, your smile will be brighter. Quitting smoking now will keep your mouth healthy for years to come.

Clear Skin

Quitting smoking is better than anti-aging lotion. Quitting can help clear up blemishes and protect your skin from premature aging and wrinkling.

Heart

Decreased Heart Risks

Smoking is the leading cause of heart attacks and heart disease. But many of these heart risks can be reversed simply by quitting smoking. Quitting can lower your blood pressure and heart rate almost immediately. Your risk of a heart attack declines within 24 hours.

Thin Blood

When you quit smoking, your blood will become thinner and less likely to form dangerous blood clots. Your heart will also have less work to do, because it will be able to move the blood around your body more easily.

Lower Cholesterol

Quitting smoking will not get rid of the fatty deposits that are already there. But it will lower the levels of cholesterol and fats circulating in your blood, which will help to slow the buildup of new fatty deposits in your arteries.

Learn about your brain and addiction.

Lungs

Stop Lung Damage

Scarring of the lungs is not reversible. That is why it is important to quit smoking before you do permanent damage to your lungs. Within two weeks of quitting, you might notice it’s easier to walk up the stairs because you may be less short of breath. Don’t wait until later; quit today!

Prevent Emphysema

There is no cure for emphysema. But quitting when you are young, before you have done years of damage to the delicate air sacs in your lungs, will help protect you from developing emphysema later.

Return of Cilia

Cilia (The fine hairlike projections from certain cells such as those in the respiratory tract that sweep in unison and help to sweep away fluids and particles) start to regrow and regain normal function very quickly after you quit smoking. They are one of the first things in your body to heal. People sometimes notice that they cough more than usual when they first quit smoking. This is a sign that the cilia are coming back to life. But you’re more likely to fight off colds and infections when you’re cilia are working properly.

DNA

Lower Cancer Risk

Quitting smoking will prevent new DNA damage from happening and can even help repair the damage that has already been done. Quitting smoking immediately is the best way to lower your risk of getting cancer.

Stomach and Hormones

Smaller Belly

Quitting smoking will reduce your belly fat and lower your risk of diabetes. If you already have diabetes, quitting can help you keep your blood sugar levels in check.

Normal Estrogen Levels

If you’re a woman, your estrogen levels will gradually return to normal after you quit smoking. And if you hope to have children someday, quitting smoking right now will increase your chances of a healthy pregnancy in the future.

Erectile Dysfunction

Sexual Healing

If you quit smoking now, you can lower your chances of erectile dysfunction and improve your chances of having a healthy sexual life.

"The nicotine was making me dead, inside and out. Now I feel free, vibrant, energetic, focused, and so alive!"

-Smokefree Arwen

 

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Blood and the Immune System

Normal White Blood Cell Count

When you quit smoking, your body will begin to heal from the injuries that smoking caused. Eventually, your white blood cell counts will return to normal and will no longer be on the defensive.

Proper Healing

Quitting smoking will improve blood flow to wounds, allowing important nutrients, minerals, and oxygen to reach the wound and help it heal properly.

Stronger Immune System

When you quit smoking, your immune system is no longer exposed to tar and nicotine. It will become stronger, and you will be less likely to get sick.

Muscles and Bones

Strong Muscles

Quitting smoking will help increase the availability of oxygen in your blood, and your muscles will become stronger and healthier.

Stronger Bones

Quitting smoking can reduce your risk of fractures, both now and later in life. Keep your bones strong and healthy by quitting now.

SmokeFree.gov

Our health still going up in smoke

Cigarette smoking used to be cool. 

Ads (one even by Ronald Reagan) promoted the health benefits of smoking. "Reach for a treat, instead of a sweet." In 2014, the Nation marked the 50th anniversary of the first Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health. In 1964, more than 40 percent of the adult population smoked. Once the link between smoking and its medical consequences—including cancers and heart and lung diseases—became a part of the public consciousness, education efforts and public policy changes were enacted to reduce the number of people who smoke. These efforts resulted in substantial declines in smoking rates in the United States—to half  the 1964 level.

However, rates of cigarette smoking and other tobacco use are still too high, and some populations are disproportionately affected by tobacco’s health consequences. Most notably, people with mental disorders—including substance use disorders—smoke at higher rates than the general population. Additionally, people living below the poverty line and those with low educational attainment are more likely to smoke than those in the general population. As tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of mortality in the United States, differential rates of smoking and use of other tobacco products is a significant contributor to health disparities among some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

What is the scope of tobacco use and its cost to society?

Approximately one fourth of the population uses tobacco products, and 19.4 percent smoke cigarettes. According to the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), an estimated 63.4 million people aged 12 or older used a tobacco product during the past month, including 51.3 million cigarette smokers. Smoking rates continue to go down year to year; the percentage of people over age 18 who smoke cigarettes declined from 20.9 percent in 2005 to 15.8 percent in 2016, according to the 2017 National Health Interview Survey.

However, smoking rates are substantially higher among some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The 25 percent of Americans with mental disorders, including addiction, account for 40 percent of the cigarettes smoked in the U.S. More than 40 percent of people with a General Education Development certificate (GED) smoke—which is the highest prevalence of any socioeconomic group. Also, people who live in rural areas, particularly in the South Atlantic states, use all forms of tobacco at higher rates than people who live in urban areas. These differences cannot be fully explained by different levels of poverty or affluence.

Learn more about addiction, the brain, and our health.

Smoking among youth is at historically low levels. According to the NIDA-sponsored Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey, in 2015, an estimated 4.7 million middle and high school students used tobacco products during the past month, according to data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) e-cigarettes) were the most commonly used tobacco products among middle (5.3 percent) and high school (16.0 percent) students in 2015. E-cigarettes deliver synthetic nicotine and do not contain tobacco; however, they are classified as tobacco products for regulatory purposes. These findings are echoed by other studies, including the MTF survey. Scientists have not yet determined the medical consequences of long-term e-cigarette use or the secondhand effects of e-cigarette vapor. 

Between 1964 and 2012, an estimated 17.7 million deaths were related to smoking leads to more than 480,000 deaths annually. If current smoking rates continue, 5.6 million Americans who are currently younger than 18 will die prematurely from smoking-related disease.

In addition to the tremendous impact of premature deaths related to tobacco use, the economic costs are high. Experts estimate that between 2009 and 2012, the annual societal costs attributable to smoking in the United States were between $289 and $332.5 billion. This includes $132.5 to $175.9 billion for direct medical care of adults and $151 billion for lost productivity due to premature deaths. In 2006, lost productivity due to exposure to secondhand smoke cost the country $5.6 billion. About 70 percent of current smokers’ excess medical care costs could be prevented by quitting.