Smoking Effects: Skin, Body and Brain
If you’re a smoker (or just curious about the subject) here is something you should definitely know.
You probably already know smoking is bad for your health: it can cause heart disease, lung disease and cancer. But you probably don’t know what it can do to your skin, especially in terms of skin aging and wrinkles, and to your brain. However, the damage can be reversed if you stop smoking as soon as possible (and get on a good skincare routine of course).
Smoking effects on the skin
Smoking decreases blood flow and oxygenation of the skin, so that causes delayed wound healing and increased risk of infections. For instance, if you have an incision or a cut on your face it’s not going to heal well. It also increases inflammation, so it makes some skin conditions like acne, eczema and rosacea even worse. You have probably heard of “smoker’s lines”, which are those vertical lines around the lips that happen after smoking, and smoking definitely increases wrinkles everywhere on the face (especially crow’s feet, forehead and lower face). Your overall complexion will look more dull and grey, and your under eye circles much more visible.
This is all because of the damage to the collagen and elastin fibres in your skin, but remember: it’s not just cigarettes that cause this damage, it can also come from vaping and nicotine gum.
Smoking effects on the body
Each cigarette puff contains a blend of approximately 6000 chemicals. When you inhale, the smoke hits your lungs rapidly, and the blood that is subsequently transmitted to the rest of your body carries these deadly compounds. Smoking tobacco releases carbon monoxide, a dangerous gas that displaces oxygen in your blood and deprives your organs of the oxygen they require.
If you smoke or vape chronically you’re damaging all of the cells in your blood vessels, and that is impairing blood flow to all of your organs. If you ingest nicotine via nicotine gum or a nicotine patch, the damage to your blood vessels is less severe, but the effects of a reduced blood flow to your organs is still present. This means an increased probability of having a stroke or a heart attack.
For every pack of cigarettes smoked a day, we can reliably estimate that you are taking 14 years off of your life. Smoking and vaping are among the leading causes of preventable deaths and debilitating conditions.
Smoking effects on the brain
The major active component of tobacco is nicotine, which has the ability to cosplay as acetylcholine and mimic the action of that neurotransmitter. Acetylcholine has a lot of different roles to play in learning, in synaptic plasticity, in wakefulness and alertness: so what’s the problem with activating that receptor? The thing is that the brain always wants to reach back to its original homeostasis, so it will down regulate the number or the sensitivity of the receptor: after smoking a cigarette you’re at baseline, and every passing minute after that cigarette your ability to be alert and awake and your brain’s capacity for learning and synaptic plasticity are prpgressively reduced.
Our brains are still developing around the age of 25, so smoking and vaping is mostly dangerous in the younger years (especially puberty): you’re basically training your brain as it’s still developing that it needs nicotine to increase your mood and your alertness, meaning you’re creating a nicotine addiction.
Nicotine suppresses appetite, but it also triggers the neurons that inhibit our body’s willingness to chew, that’s why it is very difficult for people (especially for women) to quit smoking or vaping: they don’t want to gain weight. In general, so many people want to quit smoking or vaping but find it nearly impossible to do so because nicotine is one of the most powerful and potent cognitive enhancers, meaning it’s extremely addictive.
