There are no physical reasons to start smoking. The body doesn’t need tobacco the way it needs food, water, sleep, and exercise. And many of the chemicals in cigarettes, like nicotine and cyanide, are actually poisons that can kill in high enough doses.

The body is smart. It goes on the defence when it’s being poisoned. First-time smokers often feel pain or burning in the throat and lungs, and some people feel sick or even throw up the first few times they try tobacco.

The consequences of this poisoning happen gradually. Over the long term, smoking leads people to develop health problems like heart disease, stroke, emphysema, and many types of cancer -including lung, throat, stomach, and bladder cancer. People who smoke also have an increased risk of infections like bronchitis and pneumonia.
These diseases limit a person’s ability to be normally active, and they can be fatal.

Smokers not only develop wrinkles and yellow teeth, they also lose bone density, which increases their risk of osteoporosis, a condition that causes older people to become bent over and their bones to break more easily. Smokers also tend to be less active than non–smokers because smoking affects lung power.

Smoking can also cause fertility problems and can impact sexual health in both men and women. Girls who are on the pill or other hormone-based methods of birth control increase their risk of serious health problems, such as heart attacks, if they smoke.

The consequences of smoking may seem very far off, but long-term health problems aren’t the only hazard of smoking. Nicotine and the other toxins in cigarettes, cigars, and pipes can affect a person’s body quickly, which means that teen smokers experience many of these problems:

Bad Skin

Because smoking restricts blood vessels, it can prevent oxygen and nutrients from getting to the skin – which is why smokers often appear pale and unhealthy. Studies have also linked smoking to an increased risk of getting a type of skin rash called psoriasis.

Bad Breath

Cigarettes leave smokers with a condition called halitosis, or persistent bad breath.

Bad-Smelling Clothes and Hair

The smell of stale smoke tends to linger – not just on people’s clothing, but on their hair, furniture, and cars. And it’s often hard to get the smell of smoke out.

Reduced Athletic Performance

People who smoke usually can’t compete with non-smoking peers because the physical effects of smoking impair sports performance.

Greater Risk of Injury and Slower Healing Time

Smoking affects the body’s ability to produce collagen, so common sports injuries, such as damage to tendons and ligaments will heal more slowly in smokers than non-smokers.

Increased Risk of Illness

Studies show that smokers get more colds, flu, bronchitis, and pneumonia than non-smoker. And people with certain health conditions, like asthma, become sicker if they smoke because teens who smoke as a way to manage weight often light up instead of eating, their bodies also lack the nutrients they need to grow, develop, and fight off illness properly.

Immune Cells

Smoking weakens the immune system by depressing antibodies and cells that are in the body to protect against foreign invaders. There is an association between smoking and the increased incidence of certain malignant diseases and respiratory infections, according to the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). There is also a significant decrease in immune cells that normally help the body. But this process can be reversed if a smoker gives up cigarettes. Smokers who stop show increased levels of natural killer cell (NK) activity that targets cancerous cells in the body.

Lung Tissue

Smoking can cause the body’s immune system to attack lung tissue and result in severe respiratory disorders, according to research at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio. Health scientists examined mice to study the link between cigarette exposure, the immune system and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), a serious lung disease characterized by emphysema and severe inflammation of the lung tissue. After lung cells were damaged from cigarette smoke in the lab research, the cells signalled the immune system when the damaged cells needed to be destroyed. The research shows that smoking actually activates certain parts of the immune system, which works against the lungs and attacks the tissue; it was reported in the March 2009 issue of the “Journal of Clinical Investigation.” The researchers found a strong correlation between cellular stress signals, activation of the immune system and development of diseases similar to COPD.

Researchers compared the results with tissue samples from humans who included non-smoker, smokers with COPD and smokers who did not have COPD. They found that patients who had never smoked had no trace of the lung cells that triggered the immune system to attack lung tissue. Current and former smokers who developed the disease had evidence of those lung signals.