Today, not only doctors know how useful it is to stop smoking: smoking is the number one preventable cancer risk. Burning tobacco from cigarettes causes almost 20 percent of all cancers or is involved in their development. As if that weren’t enough, cigarette smoke permanently damages blood vessels, respiratory tract, bones, teeth and gums. Erections and fertility can also be disrupted.
Now researchers have found that smoking also leaves its mark on the immune system – and this becomes more noticeable the longer and the more cigarettes are smoked, according to the researchers. So had smoking
Effects on the innate immune system, including increased inflammatory reactions. But only temporarily: They disappeared again and the smoke stopped. persistent effects on the acquired immune response: These persisted for many years after quitting smoking and altered the amount of cytokines released during infections and other challenges to the immune system.
The message, especially to young people, is clear: “Never start smoking!” says the first author of the study, Violaine Saint-André. One would like to add: “And if you do: Stop!” Because quitting smoking offers enormous health benefits, even for chain smokers.
The body can recover from smoking over time
With so much potential for harm, it is even more astonishing how much the body can recover from the strain of smoking. As long as no permanent organic damage has occurred, quitting smoking will help you regain your health.
However, it may take time to achieve this. A study at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, showed this: Of the 9,000 test subjects, around 2,500 had consumed at least one pack of cigarettes every day for more than 20 years. When these heavy smokers quit, their risk of cardiovascular disease was reduced by almost 40 percent in the first five years of not smoking. However, it took ten, 15 and, for some, even 25 years until they had the same, lower risk again as lifelong non-smokers.
The first effects appear in the first moments as a non-smoker
Many positive changes become noticeable much more quickly: the body’s regeneration begins the moment you take your last drag on the cigarette – incidentally, without any differences between the sexes. Women and men recover equally quickly and well.
The age at which you quit plays a role: Anyone who manages to stop smoking before the age of 45 can eliminate 90 percent of their resulting risk of cardiovascular problems. Australian scientists discovered this in a study.
And at this rate the body changes and regenerates:
Blood circulation improves after a few minutes without a cigarette
Wash your hair and brush your teeth and you’ll get rid of cigarette smell and bad breath, which smokers often don’t even notice. If you make an appointment for professional teeth cleaning on your first day of not smoking, you will immediately get rid of the yellow-brown plaque that makes smokers’ teeth unnaturally dark over time.
This is more of a visual-aesthetic regeneration than a health regeneration, but it helps to resist the desire for a cigarette. Because nicotine withdrawal can be very nerve-wracking in the first few weeks. Some doctors recommend that smokers who cannot resist the craving for the addictive substance should, at least as a first step, switch to e-cigarettes, heaters or vaporizers such as IQOS.
They are significantly less harmful than smoking normal cigarettes because they simply heat a liquid instead of burning a substance, as Martin Storck, Professor of Vascular Surgery and Director of the Clinic for Vascular and Thoracic Surgery at the Karlsruhe Municipal Hospital, explains. “As a result, the amounts of pollutants released, such as formaldehyde or carbon monoxide, are reduced by an average of 95 percent.”
Of course, the healthiest thing is complete abstinence from smoking. Within minutes of the last cigarette, the body’s first repair mechanisms begin: after just 20 minutes, the pulse and blood pressure drop to the individual’s normal value.
At the same time, blood circulation improves. This means, among other things, that the faster skin aging caused by smoking is stopped. Even cold hands and feet with poor blood circulation become warmer.
After a day, more oxygen enters the body
The toxic waste products of the tobacco cigarette have disappeared from the mucous membranes and with them the unpleasant smell and taste that the smoke leaves behind.
Where previously carbon monoxide from cigarette smoke displaced oxygen from the red blood cells, the situation is reversed: the carbon monoxide level in the blood falls and the oxygen level rises. All organs are better supplied with oxygen again and physical performance increases.
After a week the food tastes better
48 hours after quitting smoking, smokers’ sense of taste and smell, which is usually reduced, begins to recover. Scents and tastes are perceived more intensely.
After three days without a tobacco cigarette, it becomes easier to breathe deeply.
After one (to three) months, a lot has happened in terms of self-cleaning
The circulation stabilizes. Lung function improves. Physical exertion in everyday life and during sport becomes easier.
Facial skin, which is often gray and pale due to smoking, benefits from better blood circulation. And because it has superficially renewed itself after 28 days, it looks rosier and fresher after a month. However, wrinkles, a sign of rapid skin aging in smokers, cannot be reversed.
After a year, smoker’s cough decreases
Lung capacity increases and the airways become clear. They gradually free themselves from the deposits and mucus.
Typical smoking symptoms such as coughing fits, blocked sinuses or shortness of breath disappear.
The risk of infection is reduced.
After five years, the risk of cancer and heart attack decreases significantly
Now ex-smokers are no longer worse off than non-smokers when it comes to many illnesses:
100 percent lower risk of stroke, 100 percent lower risk of cervical cancer, 50 percent lower risk of cancer of the oral cavity, throat, esophagus and urinary bladder, 50 percent lower risk of heart attack.
After ten years the lungs are fit again
The risk of dying from lung cancer is reduced by about half.
The risk of throat and pancreatic cancer decreases.
After 15 years, the heart is as good as that of a non-smoker
The risk of coronary heart disease is no longer higher than that of a lifelong non-smoker.