What are some of the short- and long-term effects of smoking cigarettes?
Smoking causes many types of cancer, which may not develop for years. But cancers account for only about half of the deaths linked to smoking. Long-term, smoking is also a major cause of heart disease, aneurysms, bronchitis, emphysema, and stroke, and it makes pneumonia and asthma worse. Wounds take longer to heal and the immune system may be less effective in smokers than in non-smokers. Smoking also damages the arteries. Because of this, many vascular surgeons refuse to operate on patients with peripheral artery disease (poor blood circulation in the arms and legs) unless they stop smoking. And male smokers have a higher risk of sexual impotence (erectile dysfunction) the longer they smoke. The truth is that cigarette smokers die younger than non-smokers. In fact, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) done in the late 1990s, smoking shortened male smokers’ lives by 13.2 years and female smokers’ lives by 14.5 years. Men and women who smoke are
