How many teens start smoking cigarettes each year and what are the long term effects? The number of teens who start smoking every day is around three thousand which the number of teens who start smoking each year a staggering 1,095,000! Lung cancer caused by smoking is now the leading female cancer killer, claiming twenty seven thousand more of women’s lives each year than breast cancer. More teenage girls, about thirty percent, are smoking now than they did ten years ago.

Experimental smoking usually starts the smoking habit. Next comes occasional cigarette smoking at social activities like parties, gathering with friends or when attempting to lose weight. This is the most harmful stage, since it usually leads to an addictive stage, when teens become common smokers. People who start smoking before they reach twenty one have the hardest time quitting the habit, and fewer than one in ten smokers who try to quit succeed.

There is no safe amount of smoking. Each cigarette causes some harm to the body. From the time smoke touches the lips, it begins to damage living tissues, and it continues its attack wherever it reaches. Cigarette smokers have less capability to carry oxygen throughout the body and this is why smokers have less endurance when performing strenuous activities like running or for teens, participating in sporting activities. Smokers also get wrinkles at an earlier age; so if you are a teen smoker, prepare for wrinkles at somewhat of a youthful age. The cigarette smoke alters the elasticity of the skin and fine lines develop and encircle the eyes and mouth. Your clothes and hair then smell of smoke and then, you will personally not be able to smell it, for one of the long term effects of smoking is loss of your sense of smell. Many people say that kissing a smoker is like kissing an ashtray, perhaps unbeknownst to them, so the love lives of teen smokers are bound to be scaled back.

Teen smokers also miss more days of school and resulting education than nonsmokers because they have more respiratory infections like colds, coughs, sore throats, along with sinus and ear problems. The infections stem from damage to the cilia in the lungs. Cilia are tiny parts of the lung that function as little brooms, sweeping out bacteria, viruses and dirt. When they cease to clean out the lungs, the germs and dirt remain and build up, causing more frequent and longer-lasting colds.

Many teens think that lung cancer is the only long term effect of smoking, many brush it off thinking that they would be able to quit way before it gets to that stage. However there are many other effects that occur much earlier in a smoker’s life such as COPD and emphysema. In fact many experts say that emphysema is “almost a certainty” in the average smoker. Other long term smoking effects include vision problems, gum disease, and even amputation of limbs due to the body’s inability to provide oxygen to those body parts.

This should serve as a wakeup call to all teen smokers out there. As you can see lung cancer is not the only thing to worry about when you decide to “light up.” The long term effects of smoking may be taking its toll sooner than you think.

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 11:25 am and is filed under Smoking Effects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.