Tobacco and the skin

Quitting smoking decreases the risk for certain cancers, heart and cardiovascular diseases, improves general health and mood and prevents the development of respiratory illnesses. However, quitting smoking can also hinder ageing and one cosmetic-related reason to quit smoking is younger looking skin. Let's take a look at some of the ways that smoking impacts the skin in order to further underscore the importance of smoking cessation:

· Skin tone: Smoking causes people to have a poor skin tone. Smokers' skin tends to be blotchy, sallow, pale and uneven. This is because the skin is continuously deprived of the vital nutrients, oxygen and especially fluid it needs to stay healthy when people inhale tobacco smoke.

· Skin that sags: Smoking causes the skin to sag. The plethora of chemicals and toxin in tobacco smoke destroy collagen and elastin over time-the compounds responsible for keeping the skin young and elastic.

· Smoker's pucker: Smokers' use muscles around their mouths that create a wrinkle effect-a permanent pucker wrinkle.

· Wrinkles: Smoking cigarettes damages the blood vessels in the skin and causes it to age faster. As a result, people develop deep lines and wrinkles at a younger age and they have an overall look to their face that is unhealthy.

Here are just a few of the main ways that tobacco smoke can damage the skin if it is chronically inhaled over time. Many people who start smoking in their teens or twenties do not worry about these effects because they are basking in the glory of youth-how can their skin ever get wrinkles? The trouble is that youth has a time limit and smoking makes that time limit critically short. Once smokers hit their thirties, the ageing process accelerates rapidly.

The good news is that the adverse effects of smoking can always be mitigated by learning how to stop smoking. As soon as a smoker gives up cigarettes, the health damage begins to reverse and over time the body heals. It is never too late to quit smoking.