How long before smoking can start to effect someone?So I've started smoking about a half year ago and I'm seventeen and a half, I'm not at a chain smoker level but I'll occasionally have one or two every so often just to relieve stress. I've probably gone through the equivalent of about maybe a cartons-worth since I've started. How long would I have to continue smoking before serious problems start to arise (i.e. all the types of cancers and whatnot)? And is the effects of smoking reversible to some extent?
Ken
The damage begins after the first cigarette.
Possum
STOP SMOKING NOW! Your body will thank you. There is no safe amount to smoke.
mikew19532004
It starts with the first hit.
Matt
It could be tomorrow it could be never, but I am speaking from average statistics and my own personal experience of just over a year of half pack a day smoking.
Within the first year @ 1/2 pack per day you may notice:
Light smokers cough - A smokers cough gradually gets worse over a long period of time, but you may notice you cough slightly more often, and that your coughs are a little more wheezy sounding.
Very slight breathlessness - This again is progressive, and the more you smoke, the worse it will be but, after about 6 months @ 1/2 pack per day I noticed that I would be a little more out of breath running up stairs than I used to be
After the first 10 years -
Moderate smokers cough - you will notice wheezy coughing, sometimes in the form of coughing fits.
Moderate breathlessness - More than noticable.
It would be unlikely to get lung cancer and CoPD at this stage.
After 30 years -
Heavy smokers cough - bad coughing fits and bringing up phlegm.
Breathless as hell - compared to a non smoker you will be out of puff (no pun intended) in about half the time, walking up stairs and hills will be hard work.
You will be really putting yourself at a high risk of smoking related diseases like heart disease, COPD, lung, throat, mouth cancers etc.
After 50 years -
Hacking up green and nasty phlegm, like you have a chest infection permanantly, permanantly wheezy breathing...
Your risk of the Above mentioned smoking related diseases will be sky high.
So I couldn't turn around and tell you that you will get lung cancer on the 23rd of Sept 2053, but the more you smoke and the longer for, the greater the risk. Smokers coughs and breathlessness will come in a year or so, but again, progressively worsen.
Yes, its reversable by quitting, after 10-20 years you will be back to the same risks as a non smoker, and the risks in some diseases are minimised by healthy diet, etc etc..
gadgetguy
Just within the last two weeks the U.S. Surgeon General released information on just this subject. The finding were that there is an immediate higher risk of stroke, heart attack, blood clots and several other deadly conditions. Genetic damage to the lungs, also, occurs immediately, thus setting in process the mechanism which results in lung cancer.
Maybe more significantly in a Canadian study students maintained diaries of their smoking habits. They found that smokers maintained a high confidence they could quit inspite of failed quit attempts. On average students began quit attempts two months after starting, but failed to quit and only came to believe they were not able to quit after two years of smoking.
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