How long does it take for smoking to really hurt you?

Question

Before anyone tells me that it varies a lot from person to person, I know that. I'm asking in more of the ballpark/average sense.

I smoke about 1/3 to 1/2 a pack a day and have for three years. I understand that the time I should quit is yesterday, health-wise. But, on average, how long could a person smoke that amount before developing emphysema or cancer?

Answer 1

Every time you smoke you expose your lungs to carcinogens. Any one of the 10 cigarettes you have could cause a little carcinogen to stick to a cell in your lungs and cause it to mutate into a cancer.

And every time you smoke you damage and stress the delicate alveoli (little air sacs that help you breathe).

Emphysema is a degenerative disease. Most people have blackened lungs even if they don't smoke by the time they die. We breathe in c**p every day. Smoking just accelerates it.You will get emphysema if you are a smoker. Pretty much all of them do.

As for lung cancer, there is no ball park figure. Some people who have never smoked get it. Some people who smoke a pack a day don't. But smoking is a pretty good way to increase your chances. Do you really want to be on the borderline of emphysema/cancer, and stop just before you get it?

Answer 2

It varies :P

Technically if you want to look at averages, the "average" person can smoke their entire life and never get lung cancer. But do you really want to risk that 20% or so that you will get it?

Medically, we use the term pack-years. 3 years at 1/3rd a pack a day is 1 pack-year. At 1 pack-year the damage you have will start to be noticable on lung function tests.

Answer 3

I think that depends on your genetics.  You might never develop either of those.  It's possible that you will have a stroke or a heart attack.  Smoking is bad for every part of your body.  

Answer 4

You could have a cancerous cell developing right now and not even know it.  Smoking simply increases probability of a cell becoming cancerous.

You could smoke 2 packs a day for nearly a century like my great grandmother.

You could also flip a quarter 10,000 times in a row and get all heads.

You COULD.

It's just improbable.

Life's all about statistics.  Is it worth the greater risk of dying earlier in order to puff up?  If so, then by all means carry on.  I'm gonna keep drinking homemade eggnog every Christmas, even though the FDA warns that consuming raw meat/poultry increases my chances of contracting food poisoning.

Answer 5

On average, you could smoke that amount all your life and not develop emphysema and cancer, because most smokers don't get those things. But it takes about 10 pack years to set the stage for the possibility of cancer later on. That's 20 years at half a pack and 30 years at a third of a pack. As a fairly light smoker, your risk won't be zero if you keep smoking, but neither is it very high, and it will take some time for it to become significant. Do a search for "smoking risk calculator" if you want to run some numbers, and consider (if you don't want to quit) nicotine lozenges and e cigarettes, which allow you to keep using nicotine without exposing yourself to cancer-causing tars.

Answer 6

My grandparents are 87 and 83, and have been smoking for over 60 years, with no signs of stopping. Neither of them have had any types of cancer. So yes, everyone is different. Like the first poster said, it is all genetics. My father is on 50 years of smoking, and I'm on 24 years. Neither of us have had smoking related illnesses. He was a 3 pack a day a smoker, now down to a pack. I smoke a pack and a half a day. So light smokers, we are not.