Sport Success & Healthy Living
Sport Success & Healthy Living


Every year hundreds of thousands of people around the world die from diseases caused by smoking.
One in two lifetime smokers will die from their habit. Half of these deaths will occur in middle age.
Tobacco smoke also contributes to a number of cancers.
The mixture of nicotine and carbon monoxide in each cigarette you smoke temporarily increases your heart rate and blood pressure, straining your heart and blood vessels.
This can cause heart attacks and stroke. It slows your blood flow, cutting off oxygen to your feet and hands. Some smokers end up having their limbs
amputated.
Tar coats your lungs like soot in a chimney and causes cancer. A 20-a-day smoker breathes in up to a full cup (210 g) of tar in a year.
Changing to low-tar cigarettes does not help because smokers usually take deeper puffs and hold the smoke in for longer, dragging the tar deeper into their lungs.
Carbon monoxide robs your muscles, brain and body tissue of oxygen, making your whole body and especially your heart work harder. Over time, your airways swell up and let less air into your lungs.
Smoking causes disease and is a slow way to die. The strain put on your body by smoking often causes years of suffering. Emphysema is an illness that slowly rots your lungs. People with emphysema often get bronchitis again and again, and suffer lung and heart failure.
Lung cancer from smoking is caused by the tar in tobacco smoke. Men who smoke are ten times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smokers.
Heart disease and strokes are also more common among smokers than non-smokers.
Smoking causes fat deposits to narrow and block blood vessels which leads to heart attack.
Smoking causes around one in five deaths from heart disease.
In younger people, three out of four deaths from heart disease are due to smoking.
Benifits of being free from smoke
| Time |
Benefits |
| 20 min. | Blood pressure and pulse return to normal |
| 8 hrs | Nicotine and carbon monoxide levels in blood reduce by half. Oxygen levels return to normal. |
| 24 hrs | Carbon monoxide will be eliminated from the body. Lungs start to clear out mucous and other smoking debris. |
| 48 hrs | There is no nicotine left in the body. Ability to taste and smell is greatly improved. |
| 72 hrs | Breathing becomes easier. Bronchial tubes begin to relax and energy levels increase. |
| 2-12 weeks | Circulation improves |
| 3 - 9 months | Coughs, wheezing and breathing problems improve as lung functions are increased by up to 10% |
| 5 yrs. | Risk of heart attack falls to about half that of a smoker |
| 10 yrs. | Risk of lung cancer falls to about half that of a smoker. Risk of heart attack falls to the same as someone who has never smoked. |
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More Benefits |
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| Confidence | Quitting smoking is a challenge. Once you have quit, you will know you can succeed at difficult taks and take more control of your life. Quitting helps you believe in yourself. |
| Fitness | Smoking makes it harder to exercise and reduces the benefits to your body. Smokers have more coughs and colds than non-smokers and take longer to feel well again. |
| Money | In a way, giving up smoking is like getting a pay rise, as much as €3000 a year if you smoke 20 cigarettes a day. |
| Appearance | Skin starved of oxygen by smoking becomes dry and grey. Wrinkles around the eyes and mouth develop much earlier and the tar stains your teeth and fingers. |
| Fertility | Men who smoke may suffer impotence due to damage to the blood vessels in the penis. Sperm quality and density can also be affected by smoking. Smokers may produce less sperm and their sperm may have more abnormalities. Women who smoke take longer to conceive and are |
| Childbirth | Babies born to mothers who smoked in pregnancy are more likely to be premature, stillborn or die shortly after birth. A baby exposed to tobacco smoke has a higher risk of dying from cot death. |
| Children | Children whose parents smoke are more likely to get pneumonia and bronchitis in their first year of life, to suffer from more frequent and more severe asthma attacks and to become regular smokers themselves. |