Tobacco is a major independent risk factor for fatal and non-fatal heart attacks in both men and women. The risk of heart attacks, strokes and blood clots increases ten-fold for women who both smoke and use oral contraceptives. As damage to the lungs continues, breathing capacity is destroyed, leading to emphysema. Emphysema is a noncancerous lung disease that destroys the elasticity of the lungs and impairs the ability to inhale and exhale properly. Tissue affected by emphysema can never be repaired or replaced, and the smoker eventually must gasp for breath.
Lung cancer begins with the constant irritation of smoke on the lining of the bronchi.
Air-filtering hairlike cilia disappear from the lining and a mucus is secreted to take its place. If a smoker gives up smoking before cancerous cells are present, the bronchial lining can repair itself. If abnormal cell growth has begun, the cancer will spread, blocking the bronchi and attacking other lung tissue. As the cancer progresses, the abnormal cells break loose from the lung and are carried by the lymphatic system to other vital organs, where new cancers begin. The American Cancer Society estimates that smoking is responsible for 87 percent of the lung cancer among men and women.