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Does Smoking Affect How You Look?

Here's one more reason to quit smoking. If you want healthy and glowing skin and want to avoid premature wrinkling, its time to reconsider this unhealthy habit.

By: DoctorNDTV | Jun 8, 2017 12:35

3-Min Read

According to WHO, India is a home to 12% of world's smokers

Here's one more reason to quit smoking. If you want a healthy and glowing skin and want to avoid premature wrinkling you should probably reconsider your unhealthy smoking habits. According to Mayo health, smoking can speed up the normal ageing process of your skin, contributing to wrinkles. These skin changes may occur after only 10 years of smoking. The more cigarettes you smoke and the longer you smoke, the more wrinkles you're likely to have even though the early skin damage from smoking may be hard for you to see initially.

Here's how smoking can have an impact on your appearance:

1. The wrinkles not only formulate on your face but also other body parts like hands and arms. Nicotine is known to narrow your blood vessels in the outermost layers of your skin. This impairs blood flow to your skin. With less blood flow, your skin doesn't get as much oxygen and important nutrients, such as vitamin A. The harmful chemicals present in the nicotine smoke reduce elasticity of the skin and damage the collagen which gives the skin its strength. This is why smoking shows signs of premature wrinkling and sagging of the skin.

2. Smoking also effects your inability to sleep, if you smoke, you're four times as likely as nonsmokers to report feeling tired after a night's sleep, according to a Johns Hopkins study. This results in increase in the appearance of dark circles.

According to National Sleep Foundation, smokers can easily develop insomnia and hence dark circles
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3. According to another study conducted in 2007, if you puff a pack a day for 10 years or less, psoriasis risk goes up by 20%; 11-20 years and your risk is 60% higher; and for those who pass the two-decade mark, the psoriasis risk more than doubles. (Even secondhand smoke during pregnancy or childhood is linked to a higher risk.) Psoriasis is a skin condition that is often misunderstood, and the people suffering from it face prejudice and discrimination. It is actually an autoimmune disease, which means that a broken immune system sees your skin as an enemy and attacks it relentlessly. As a result, skin cells that would normally take weeks to grow and reach the outer surface of your skin now only take days. This leaves an excess of skin cells on your body, causing the hallmark raised red, white, or silvery patches on your skin.

Smoking increases the risk of psoriasis
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4. Another common result of smoking on your appearance is yellowing of the teeth, which is more common in older adults. It can also contribute to gum disease, and may make dental procedures less effective when they are needed. Those who face severe gum disease, the teeth may actually fall out.

One of the reasons of teeth staining is due to smoking of nicotine and tabacco
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5. Another famous study conducted in Taiwan in 2007 stated that the toxic chemicals in smoke can damage the DNA in hair follicles and generate cell-damaging free radicals as well, this results with the smoker having thinner hair that tends to go gray sooner than nonsmokers. That is, if they have any hair at all.

Research says that cigarette smoking lead to hair loss
Photo Credit: iStock

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