Discover the exact ways smoking affects the skin and even leads to skin cancer. Also educate yourself about how to prevent the skin damage that smoking brings.

1. How Smoking Affects the Skin
By
http://2stopsmokingtips.com

2. Introduction
• The health risks of smoking are immense but
the most visible of them all is the effect on the
skin. People can notice a smoker miles away
because the skin looks
dry, saggy, wrinkled, impoverished, and in dire
need of a makeover. But the makeover won’t
come until cigarette smoking is stopped.
Experts say the body has an amazing ability to
heal itself and all a smoker needs to prevent
further skin damage is to quit smoking.

3. Skin Damage From Smoking is Grave
• While you may say the damage smoking does
to the skin is minute compared to the lung
cancers, COPD, or cardiovascular diseases, I
dare say any damage (whether superficial or
otherwise) should be looked into to avoid
further damage (because smokers can develop
skin cancer and that’s not minute. Is it?).

4. How Smoking Destroys the Skin
• Preventive Dermatology by Robert A. Norman and
Max Rappaport gives an overview on how smoking
affects the skin.
• “Smoking”, according to the authors, “causes
premature aging of the skin by affecting the color, tone
and wrinkling.” They further stated that smoking can
increase the risk for developing psoriasis (skin redness
and irritation), melanoma (risky type of skin
cancer), squamous cell carcinomas (form of skin
cancer) on lips and tissue which lines the mouth. While
stating that smoking could also be responsible for poor
wound healing due to reduction of oxygen and
nutrients to the skin, they also said it could cause acne
and hair loss.

5. How Smoking Destroys the Skin(2)
• Robert Jones explains further in his book
titled: Looking Younger: Makeovers That
Make You Look as Good as You Feel.
• According to him, “smoking destroys collagen
and elastin in the skin. Nicotine actually has a
harmful effect on tiny blood vessels in your
face that feed and nourish your skin. Most
experts consider smoking the number one
cause of premature aging.”

6. How Smoking Destroys the Skin(3)
• In addition, Jones maintains smoking can alter
the pigmentation of your skin, making it look
dry and colorless and that the habitual use of
certain muscles around the mouth during
smoking can cause deep wrinkles.
• He proffers a solution. According to him, “the
best way to prevent these aging effects is to
simply not smoke. Bottom line: Smoking is
robbing you of beauty and youth.”

7. The Effects of Smoking on the Skin
• Care to know some of the effects of smoking on
the skin? Find out below:
• Premature Aging: A 2001 Japanese study to
investigate the association between wrinkle
formation and tobacco smoking confirmed that
heavy smoking causes premature skin aging. The
results of the study conducted at the Nagoya City
University Medical School, Japan were published
in the Journal of Dermatological Science.

8. The Effects of Smoking on the Skin(2)
• Wrinkles: The Tao of Quitting Smoking by
Joseph P. Weaver, says scientists believe that
smokers are three times as likely to develop
premature wrinkling caused by smoking,
which can show up in people as young as 20
years old. “The four thousand-plus chemicals
in tobacco smoke interfere with
microvasculature pathways which nourish
your skin with oxygen rich blood, thereby
causing wrinkling.”

9. The Effects of Smoking on the Skin(3)
• Skin Tissue Composition: Smoking deteriorates the
composition of the skin tissue and is sometimes
responsible for serious acne breakouts. Skin becomes
dry and brittle with increased lines and wrinkles.
• Poor Wound Healing: A University of Oklahoma Health
Science Center study co-ordinated by Silverstein, P
concluded that smokers have a higher degree of poor
healing after face-lift surgery, as well as a greater
degree of complications following breast surgery. They
should therefore be advised to quit smoking before
undergoing any form of voluntary surgery or “when
recovering from wounds resulting from
trauma, disease, or emergent surgery.”

10. The Effects of Smoking on the Skin(4)
• Skin Tone and Colour: Among many other effects, smoking
leads to a discolouration of the skin as well as premature
wrinkling.
• Skin Cancer: While smoking has been scientifically linked to
a couple of ailments like Lung cancer, COPD and heart
disease, the evidence for skin cancer had not been too
clear. But in June 2012, a study threw more light on this. It
linked smoking to one type of skin cancer. After going
through their pool of evidence, Fiona Bath-Hextall of the
University of Nottingham in England and colleagues
concluded that smoking is highly responsible for squamous
cell cancer ( a form of cancer of the carcinoma type that
may occur in many different organs, including the
skin, lips, mouth, etc).

11. The Way Out for Smokers
• Earlier in this article, I quoted Robert Jones (author
of Looking Younger: Makeovers That Make You Look
as Good as You Feel) as saying the way out is to stop
smoking and even though this will prevent further skin
damage, experts say it may not reverse past skin
damage. The most sensible to do for most smokers is
to quit smoking before any irreversible damage is done
to their skin. And so if you’re reading this and still
smoking as a chimney, you know just what to do.
Throw the butts away and get a non-smoking life! As
you do so, you will no doubt find a companion in this
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) ebook on how
smoking affects the way you look.

12. Thanks for Reading!!!
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• http://2stopsmokingtips.com