Smoking Health Risks
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- Macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness in older people. Symptoms of macular degeneration include a loss of central vision, which makes it difficult to read.
- Gum disease and tooth loss. A government study found that more than half of the cases of severe gum disease in adults in the United States may be due to cigarette smoking.
- Wrinkles. Studies confirm that smokers are nearly five times more likely to develop more and deeper wrinkles as they age compared to non-smokers.
- Baldness and premature gray hair. Certain chemicals in smoke break down in hair cells, which leads to hair damage.
- Hearing loss, particularly high-frequency hearing loss. Some experts believe that losing the ability to hear high pitched sound in smokers may be due to a decrease in blood flow to the cochlea, the part of the ear that carries sound to the brain.
- Incontinence. One study of 600 women indicated that smokers and former smokers are twice as likely to develop incontinence as women who never smoked.
Review Date: 09/18/2006
Reviewed By: Harvey Simon, MD, Editor-in-Chief, Associate Professor of Medicine,
Harvard Medical School; Physician, Massachusetts General Hospital
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