Benefits of Quitting
Health Consequences of Smoking
Smoking causes harm to nearly every part of your body. Quit for your health.
You breathe in more than 4,000 chemicals each time you smoke a cigarette. All forms of tobacco are harmful and even deadly. Both women and men are hurt by these poisons.
Cancers
More women in the United States die from lung cancer than any other type of cancer. Your chance of getting lung cancer goes up the longer you smoke and the more you smoke two or more packs of cigarettes a day than among women who do not smoke. This means that if you smoke two or more packs of cigarettes a day, you are much more likely to die of lung cancer than your friends who do not smoke.
Good News... Once you are smoke-free for 5 years, you are less likely to die from lung cancer and other lung diseases than if you were still a smoker. The longer you stay smoke-free, the lower your chances of getting these diseases.1 Women of all ages who quit smoking can largely lower their chance of getting diseases such as cancer. For smokers who do get cancer, quitting smoking helps their bodies to heal and to respond to cancer treatment. Quitting also lowers their chance of getting a second cancer.
Heart Disease and Stroke
More women die of heart disease than anything else. Smoking causes heart disease in women. A woman’s chance of getting heart disease goes up with the number of cigarettes she has smoked and how long she has been smoking.
Good News... Your chance of getting heart disease greatly goes down within 1 or 2 years of quitting smoking. Once you are smoke-free for 10 years, your risk of heart disease is the same as if you had never been a smoker.
Women who smoke are more likely to have a stroke than non-smokers.
Good news... You can lower your chance of having a stroke by quitting smoking. Five to 15 years after quitting, your chance of stroke is the same as that of a woman who has never smoked.2
Lungs
Cigarette smoking is the #1 cause of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) among women. Emphysema and chronic bronchitis are two kinds of COPD. Your chance of getting COPD goes up the more you smoke and the longer you smoke. Among women in the United States, cigarette smoking causes about 9 out of every 10 deaths from COPD.
Teen girls who smoke have lungs that don’t grow as much as non-smokers’ lungs, and adult women who smoke have lungs that don’t work as well as non-smokers’ lungs.2
Women’s Health
Some studies show that women who smoke get more irregular or painful periods.
Smokers are more likely than nonsmokers to go through menopause at a younger age, and they may have worse symptoms of menopause.2
Women who smoke may have a harder time getting pregnant.
Pregnant women who smoke have a higher chance of losing their baby before it is born.
Studies show smoking is linked to the risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome, also called "crib death") in babies of women who smoked during pregnancy.
Good news... If you quit smoking before or during pregnancy, you can lower the chance of:
- Smoke harming the baby.
- Having the baby early.
- Having a baby who weighs less than 5½ pounds.
Learn more about the benefits of quitting when you are pregnant.
Other Health Problems for Women Who Smoke
Women who have gone through menopause and who smoke have lower bone density. This means they have a higher chance of fracturing a hip than women who do not smoke.2 They are also more likely to get rheumatoid arthritis and eye cataracts.1,2
Smoking is linked to gum disease, which may lead to bone and tooth loss. Smokers are more likely to get ulcers in the stomach, which can lead to death.1,2
Smokers have worse survival rates after surgery, and they are more likely to have problems after surgery. This is because their bodies take longer to heal and their immune systems are weaker than non-smokers’.1
It is important for women to know about the link between smoking and depression because they are more likely than men to be diagnosed with depression. For more information about depression, visit the Depression section.
Source:
1 - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2004.
2 - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Women and Smoking—A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2001.
3 - 2001 Surgeon General's Report—Women and Smoking, http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/2001/index.htm
