Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsHow Smoking Affects the LungsLung DiseasesSymptomsFrequently Asked Questions
Table of ContentsView All
View All
Table of Contents
How Smoking Affects the Lungs
Lung Diseases
Symptoms
Frequently Asked Questions
Smoking—cigarettes, cigars, pipes, marijuana, and even electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes—can have a harmful effect on your entire body, but especially on your respiratory system. This includes your airways, lungs, certain blood vessels, and the muscles that power your lungs.
Cigarette smoking, for example, is responsible for nearly 90% of all lung cancer deaths and 80% of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes things likeemphysemaandchronic bronchitis. These can be life-threatening conditions that make it difficult to breathe.
Smoking also exacerbates (worsens) other lung disorders, such as asthma, a condition in which the lungs swell and the airways narrow, making the flow of air in and out of the body difficult.
Learn more about how smoking causes lung disease and how to recognize the signs of damage.
Verywell / Katie Kerpel
When you inhale, oxygen-rich air travels through your mouth or nose into your voice box (larynx), windpipe (trachea), and then into a series of tubes, calledbronchial tubes. These bronchial tubes connect to the lungs.
Once insidethe lungs, the tubes branch off into smaller offshoots, calledbronchioles, and then into sacs at the end of bronchioles, calledalveoli.
Along the way, tiny hairs, called cilia, clear dirt and debris from the air as it travels through your respiratory tract so it doesn’t get stuck in the lungs and cause irritation. These same cilia help remove mucus from the lungs.
That’s how the respiratory system should work. But smoking can cause things to go awry. Cigarette smoke, for example, contains 7,000 different chemicals, some of them toxic, which bombard your lungs and bloodstream with every puff.When you smoke:
Increased Risk of InfectionsCompared to nonsmokers, smokers are 1.5 times more likely to get community-acquiredpneumonia(a lung infection that develops when not in a healthcare setting) and are more than two times more likely to catch a cold.
Increased Risk of Infections
Compared to nonsmokers, smokers are 1.5 times more likely to get community-acquiredpneumonia(a lung infection that develops when not in a healthcare setting) and are more than two times more likely to catch a cold.
Quitting smoking can help improve lung function—and it doesn’t take a lot of time to see positive changes, including:
Smoking can cause lung damage and lead to lung diseases, including:
Lung Cancer
The toxic chemicals in cigarettes and other forms of tobacco smoke can lead to cell damage. When cells are damaged, they can mutate (or change) and eventually become cancerous.Most lung cancers start in the cells that line the bronchial tubes, bronchioles, and alveoli.
Researchers have found that smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for a year can result in, on average, up to 150 mutations to each lung cell.With so many mutations, it’s not hard to see why smokers are 15–30 times more likely to develop and die from lung cancer than nonsmokers.
Whether marijuana smoking increases a person’s risk of lung cancer is still open for debate. Additional well-designed studies need to be conducted. However, smoking marijuana can lead to other forms of lung damage.
Lung Cancer and Smoking
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
The dangerous chemicals in cigarettes, other tobacco products, and marijuana can cause your airways to become chronically inflamed, thickened, and narrow, leading to COPD, a lung disease in which too much air stays trapped in your lungs.
Two common forms of COPD are chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
Chronic Bronchitis
When smoking irritates and inflames the bronchial tubes, bronchitis can occur. When the bronchitis produces a wet cough that lasts three or more months for two consecutive years, it’s labeled as chronic bronchitis.This cough is sometimes referred to as asmoker’s cough.
Emphysema
Emphysemais a condition in which the tiny air sacs of the lungs (alveoli) are damaged. Cigarette smoke causes the walls between the sacs to break down. These larger sacs don’t move oxygen from air to the blood as efficiently, making it harder to breathe.
Even if you’re a smoker who doesn’t meet the medical criteria for COPD, you’re still apt to have symptoms of COPD.
Research looking at current and former smokers and nonsmokers found that 50% of the smokers had symptoms of respiratory dysfunction, even though they had performed normally on a respiratory breathing test.
They were also more likely than asymptomatic smokers to have limitations on their activity, to have greater airway-wall thickening, and to be more likely to use medications like bronchodilators to open their airways.
An Overview of COPD
Asthma
While smoking doesn’t cause asthma, it can make it worse. Smoking can further irritate and inflame airways that are already swollen and narrowed from asthma, making breathing even more difficult.
An Overview of Asthma
Signs of Lung Disease from Smoking
Summary
While smoking can harm nearly every organ in your body, it delivers a direct and toxic hit to your lungs. Smoking dramatically increases your risk of a variety of lung diseases, including lung cancer and COPD.
A Word From Verywell Health
If you smoke, the best way to stop further lung damage—and to even reverse some of the harm smoking has caused to your lungs and other parts of your body—is to quit now. Reach out to your healthcare professional for information on smoking cessation programs and to get advice about prescription and over-the-counter medications that can help you quit.
A lot depends on how much and how long you smoke. When you smoke, damage to your lungs starts immediately. Even being exposed to secondhand smoke can cause damage.It may, however, take years before the damage becomes so noticeable that it’s finally diagnosed as lung disease.
A lot depends on how much and how long you smoke. When you smoke, damage to your lungs starts immediately. Even being exposed to secondhand smoke can cause damage.
It may, however, take years before the damage becomes so noticeable that it’s finally diagnosed as lung disease.
While not all of them have lung disease, many do. Smokers are also at higher risk for a variety of other health conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and a variety of cancers.
Some of the damage caused to your lungs is permanent. But quitting smoking is still important as it can prevent further harm. In fact, quitting may be able to reverse certain kinds of damage.For example, research shows that even when long-term smokers quit, healthy cells that managed to escape the ravages of smoking can grow and repair some of the damage to airways.
Some of the damage caused to your lungs is permanent. But quitting smoking is still important as it can prevent further harm. In fact, quitting may be able to reverse certain kinds of damage.
For example, research shows that even when long-term smokers quit, healthy cells that managed to escape the ravages of smoking can grow and repair some of the damage to airways.
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19 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.American Lung Association.10 of the worst diseases smoking causes.Nemours Children’s Health.Lungs and respiratory system.Benjamin RM.Exposure to tobacco smoke causes immediate damage: a report of the Surgeon General.Public Health Rep. 2011;126(2):158-159. doi:10.1177/003335491112600202University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.How smoking cigarettes affects your lungs.Jiang C, Chen Q, Xie M.Smoking increases the risk of infectious diseases: A narrative review.Tob Induc Dis. 2020;18:60. Published 2020 Jul 14. doi:10.18332/tid/123845Smokefree.gov.Why you should quit: Health effects.University of Utah Health.Acute & chronic bronchitis.American Cancer Society.Health benefits of quitting smoking over time.Moffitt Cancer Center.How does smoking cause lung cancer?American Cancer Society.What is lung cancer?Alexandrov LB, Ju YS, Haase K, et. al.Mutational signatures associated with tobacco smoking in human cancer.Science. 2016 Nov 4;354(6312):618-622. doi:10.1126/science.aag0299Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.What are the risk factors for lung cancer?U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Cannabis and lung health.COPD Foundation.What is COPD?Woodruff PG, Barr RG, Bleecker E, et. al.Clinical significance of symptoms in smokers with preserved pulmonary function.New England Journal of Medicine. 2016;374(19):1811-1821. doi:10.1056/nejmoa1505971Office on Women’s Health.Lung disease.American Cancer Society.Health risks of smoking tobacco.Office of the Surgeon General.Health consequences of smoking, surgeon general fact sheet.Yoshida K, Gowers KHC, Lee-Six H, et. al.Tobacco smoking and somatic mutations in human bronchial epithelium.Nature. 2020;578(7794):266-272. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-1961-1Additional ReadingUCSF Health.Chronic bronchitis.
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
American Lung Association.10 of the worst diseases smoking causes.Nemours Children’s Health.Lungs and respiratory system.Benjamin RM.Exposure to tobacco smoke causes immediate damage: a report of the Surgeon General.Public Health Rep. 2011;126(2):158-159. doi:10.1177/003335491112600202University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.How smoking cigarettes affects your lungs.Jiang C, Chen Q, Xie M.Smoking increases the risk of infectious diseases: A narrative review.Tob Induc Dis. 2020;18:60. Published 2020 Jul 14. doi:10.18332/tid/123845Smokefree.gov.Why you should quit: Health effects.University of Utah Health.Acute & chronic bronchitis.American Cancer Society.Health benefits of quitting smoking over time.Moffitt Cancer Center.How does smoking cause lung cancer?American Cancer Society.What is lung cancer?Alexandrov LB, Ju YS, Haase K, et. al.Mutational signatures associated with tobacco smoking in human cancer.Science. 2016 Nov 4;354(6312):618-622. doi:10.1126/science.aag0299Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.What are the risk factors for lung cancer?U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Cannabis and lung health.COPD Foundation.What is COPD?Woodruff PG, Barr RG, Bleecker E, et. al.Clinical significance of symptoms in smokers with preserved pulmonary function.New England Journal of Medicine. 2016;374(19):1811-1821. doi:10.1056/nejmoa1505971Office on Women’s Health.Lung disease.American Cancer Society.Health risks of smoking tobacco.Office of the Surgeon General.Health consequences of smoking, surgeon general fact sheet.Yoshida K, Gowers KHC, Lee-Six H, et. al.Tobacco smoking and somatic mutations in human bronchial epithelium.Nature. 2020;578(7794):266-272. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-1961-1
American Lung Association.10 of the worst diseases smoking causes.
Nemours Children’s Health.Lungs and respiratory system.
Benjamin RM.Exposure to tobacco smoke causes immediate damage: a report of the Surgeon General.Public Health Rep. 2011;126(2):158-159. doi:10.1177/003335491112600202
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.How smoking cigarettes affects your lungs.
Jiang C, Chen Q, Xie M.Smoking increases the risk of infectious diseases: A narrative review.Tob Induc Dis. 2020;18:60. Published 2020 Jul 14. doi:10.18332/tid/123845
Smokefree.gov.Why you should quit: Health effects.
University of Utah Health.Acute & chronic bronchitis.
American Cancer Society.Health benefits of quitting smoking over time.
Moffitt Cancer Center.How does smoking cause lung cancer?
American Cancer Society.What is lung cancer?
Alexandrov LB, Ju YS, Haase K, et. al.Mutational signatures associated with tobacco smoking in human cancer.Science. 2016 Nov 4;354(6312):618-622. doi:10.1126/science.aag0299
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.What are the risk factors for lung cancer?
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Cannabis and lung health.
COPD Foundation.What is COPD?
Woodruff PG, Barr RG, Bleecker E, et. al.Clinical significance of symptoms in smokers with preserved pulmonary function.New England Journal of Medicine. 2016;374(19):1811-1821. doi:10.1056/nejmoa1505971
Office on Women’s Health.Lung disease.
American Cancer Society.Health risks of smoking tobacco.
Office of the Surgeon General.Health consequences of smoking, surgeon general fact sheet.
Yoshida K, Gowers KHC, Lee-Six H, et. al.Tobacco smoking and somatic mutations in human bronchial epithelium.Nature. 2020;578(7794):266-272. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-1961-1
UCSF Health.Chronic bronchitis.
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