Did you know: Smoking causes more than lung cancer?

• Cigarettes have literally thousands of chemical components, at least 400 of which are toxic.

• Smoking accounts for at least 30% of all cancer deaths. It is a major cause of lung cancer– the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women and one of the most difficult cancers to treat – as well as cancers of the voice box, mouth, throat, esophagus, and bladder. 

• Smoking is also linked to cancers of the pancreas, kidney, stomach and some leukemia.

• Smoking is also a major cause of heart disease, aneurysms, bronchitis, emphysema, and stroke, and it makes pneumonia and asthma worse.

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• Smoking has been linked to other health problems including gum disease, cataracts, bone thinning, hip fractures, and peptic ulcers. It is also linked to macular degeneration, an eye disease that can cause blindness. Smoking can cause or worsen poor blood flow in the arms and legs.

• Smoking affects a smoker's health in many ways, harming nearly every organ of the body, and causing diseases.  Most have at least one chronic disease because they smoked or had smoked. The diseases seen most often were chronic bronchitis, emphysema, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer. These diseases can steal away a person's quality of life long before death.

• Smoking-related illness can limit a person's daily life by making it harder to breathe, get around, work, or play.

• It is estimated that adult male smokers lost an average of 13.2 years of life and female smokers lost 14.5 years of life because of smoking.

It is worth it?

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