You likely know that smoking – whether vaping or smoking tobacco or marijuana – is detrimental to your health. However, your body benefits quickly and significantly from quitting any type of smoking.
The effect of smoking on the body is dose-dependent, meaning the health risks of smoking increase both with the number of cigarettes smoked and the time smoked, according to CentraState pulmonologist and critical care physician Rajagopalan Rengan, DO. The sooner you quit, the quicker your body will benefit from the change.
What happens when you quit smoking:
- Your heart rate drops to normal within 20 minutes.
- Your risk of heart attack is reduced significantly after 24 hours.
- After a year, your risk of dying from a heart attack becomes the same as someone who’s never smoked.
- Your risk of having a stroke drops to that of a nonsmoker in as little as five years.
- You prevent further damage to blood vessels in the heart and to cilia (hairlike structures that help clear out impurities), alveoli (tiny air sacs) and blood vessels in the lungs.
- Before age 55, your risk of developing lung cancer is cut in half. After that age, the risk of lung cancer still decreases, but not as significantly.
- Your risk of developing any cancer decreases, particularly cancers of the larynx, mouth, esophagus, pancreas, kidneys, bladder, urethra, stomach, liver, breast and blood.
However, Dr. Rengan advises against trading one smoking habit for another. If you start vaping instead, you no longer inhale carbon monoxide but are still exposed to nicotine, which increases stroke and heart attack risk. You also risk lung damage from inhaling unregulated ingredients. Similarly, while marijuana doesn’t contain nicotine, it’s still associated with lung tumors.
When it comes to quitting, Dr. Rengan says, “While patients who have a health scare often quit smoking successfully, don’t wait until there’s a crisis. You can feel better nearly instantaneously by quitting today.”
Learn more and get started today with CentraState’s Smoking Cessation program “A Time to Quit”.
