Throat
Smoking causes cancer of the larynx (voice box), pharynx (throat), and food pipe (esophagus). Frequently, doctors cut out your esophagus as part of the treatment for these cancers. That means getting food through a tube going directly into your stomach. No more normal eating. Many times, doctors remove your voice box and you have to breathe through a tube inserted in your throat. And it’s not just cigarette smoking. Cigars affect the throat, too. Male cigar smokers are 4–10 times more likely to die from oral and some types of throat cancers than nonsmokers.
Heart
Smokers beware! A heart attack happens when smoking interrupts blood getting to the heart muscle. Smoking makes the poor sick heart work harder and beat faster. Because smoking also reduces the blood supply to the heart muscle, a heartbeat can become very painful. This is called angina. Or the blood supply to the heart muscle can stop altogether and part or most of the heart can die. This is called a heart attack. A really bad heart attack results in death twice as many times in someone who smokes than in someone who doesn’t.
Lungs
Emphysema. Asthma. Cancer. More than 160,000 people die of lung cancer each year and most of them (90%) are smokers. Cigarette smoke is made up of more than 4,000 chemicals, some of which actually cause cancer. Don’t forget about secondhand smoke either. Each year, 3,000 adult lung cancer deaths are caused just by breathing in the smoke from someone else’s a burning cigarette. And they don’t even smoke!
Stomach
Smoking can really mess up your gut. Smokers are more likely to get peptic ulcers, which are sores on the lining of the stomach. In really bad cases, smoking can be deadly, like with stomach cancer. In many cases, people with stomach cancer have only a 10%–15% chance of surviving 5 years after diagnosis and treatment. The rate of stomach cancers is doubled in smokers.
Intestine
Smoking increases the risk of developing gallstones. These are small stones that can develop in the gall bladder and can be really painful. They frequently require surgery. There is also an increased risk of developing a painful disease called Crohn’s disease, which causes pain, gas, diarrhea, and blockage in the intestine that can be deadly if not corrected surgically.
Liver
Smoking interrupts the liver’s important job of processing medications and cleaning out toxins from the body. Smoking may also make medications you take more dangerous or not work at all. There is also a chance of liver disease and cancer.
Arteries/Veins
Atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, is caused by smoking. This can lead to severe diseases like coronary heart disease (the heart) and stroke (the brain). Ever heard of peripheral vascular disease? It’s when your blood vessels are too narrow and the blood can’t circulate as much to areas like your legs, making it painful to walk. Smokers are much more likely to get this disease, too.