To send a link and summary of this article to a friend, click here . And if you're a smoker, you've likely tried to quit more than once. And you plan to try again. For a little motivation, it helps to first understand how cigarette smoke damages your body. Though all of the harmful reactions caused by smoking are not completely understood, researchers agree that the lion's share of smokers' ailments are the result of free radicals.
Free radicals are unstable molecules that are missing electrons.
They pillage your body's healthy molecules for replacement electrons, leaving more free radicals and damaged cells and tissues in their wake. This process is called oxidation, and it's what makes iron rust and fruit turn brown. And scientists are beginning to believe that oxidation is what makes people age. Though free radicals are formed during everyday functions such as breathing, environmental stress factors such as smoking dramatically accelerate their production. In fact, each puff on a cigarette generates millions of free radicals, making smokers much more susceptible than nonsmokers to the ravages of oxidative tissue damage.