What terrible changes will happen to your body if you smoke one cigarette a day?

When a cigarette is lit, it produces more than 7,000 chemical substances, including at least 69 carcinogens, including but not limited to: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, butadiene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, lead, arsenic, nickel, etc.

Image source: Tuchong Creative

Every time you take a puff of cigarette, these harmful substances will enter your body along with the smoke.

They first enter your mouth and throat, leaving noticeable traces.

Nicotine, tar, heavy metals, etc. in smoke will invade the oral mucosa, inhibit saliva secretion, weaken oral immunity, lead to oral flora imbalance, and cause oral diseases such as bad breath, black gums, yellowing teeth, periodontitis, and oral cancer.

The throat will become dry, congested, edematous, and pharyngitis due to long-term stimulation. The vocal cords will also become hoarse and even develop polyps due to long-term stimulation.

Next, the cigarette smoke travels to your lower airways and into your lungs.

There are a lot of cilia on the walls of normal trachea. Like a "brush", they will regularly swing to expel the inhaled dust and pathogens, thus keeping the respiratory system clean.

However, harmful substances in cigarette smoke can damage these cilia, causing them to become shorter, fewer, and stop waving. Over time, they can even lose their purification ability. When cilia are damaged, harmful substances can "flow unimpeded" and easily reach deep into the lungs, which not only destroys gas exchange in the lungs, but also harms the health of the alveoli, causing them to become thinner and lose elasticity, and even leading to emphysema, cancer, etc.

Image source: Tuchong Creative

In addition, harmful substances in the smoke will hitch a ride on the "blood" express train in the lungs, enter the systemic circulation, and indiscriminately attack various organs in the body.

For example, smoking can damage the vascular endothelium and lead to atherosclerosis; smoking can inhibit insulin production and lead to diabetes; smoking can cause atrophy of the cerebral cortex and make one more susceptible to Alzheimer's disease.

In short, the harm of smoking to the body is far beyond imagination. Whether for your own health or for your family, I advise you to quit smoking as soon as possible!

Because no matter when you start to quit smoking, it is beneficial. Studies have found that even if a person quits smoking at the age of 60, the mortality rate of cardiovascular disease after five years is 10% lower than those who continue to smoke.

Produced by: Huayuan Bohan Science Creation Team

Reviewer: Dong Xiaosong, Chief Physician, Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine, Peking University People's Hospital