What kind of damage does [x years] of smoking do?

[rousseau]

We'll go ahead and assume that if you've been smoking for 20+ years your lungs are going to be in a sorry state, but what about those who quit after a shorter period of time?

I smoked for about 5 years, in the first year mildly, second and third moderately, and fourth and fifth heavily. I've been searching around to try and understand what my lungs look like now but most articles I've found focus on the improvements your lungs make, and not what permanent damage has been done.

Anyone have any idea? Any resources you can point me toward?

I've taken up running again for the first time since quitting the habit, and as far as I can tell my lung capacity has definitely gone down. Not sure if that's due to lack of exercise or permanent damage.

 

[Mageth]

I'm pretty sure a competent doctor could give you some simple breathing tests that would provide a fair estimate of your current lung capacity, and that may be used as a basis for an estimate of how much your capacity is diminished.

Over time with exercise you should recover some or most of the capacity you lost, I think.

 

[Lugubert]

Starting age for smoking might be an important factor. I was a smoker from as late as ca. 20, starting with cheroots and pipe and the occasional cigar. Accelerating, adding cigarettes at 40, until my first stroke at 56. That's approaching 40 years of substance abuse, compared to your five. (Of course there are a gazillion factors to consider, from genetics to lifestyle, but anyway.) After that, I had just a minor relapse of a few months. On quitting, the main noticeable effect was much improved general fitness. I haven't bothered to get a lung capacity measurement. Oxygen uptake doesn't seem to be a problem, and my arteries are ultrasound confirmed surprisingly clean.

As suggested by Mageth, do get a spirometry test for lung capacity. That should convince you that you're just out of exercise.

 

[bilby]

Lung capacity includes a lot of redundancy; unless you are planning on becoming a fire-fighter or a marathon runner, you can function perfectly well with 50-70% of your lungs. My ex had most of her right lung removed, and after recovering from surgery was barely impaired at all - she would need to take a rest after climbing two flights of stairs, or walking up a steep hill, but she didn't seem to be noticeably less capable than most people with two fully functioning lungs.

Despite the well-intentioned propaganda that 'every cigarette is doing you harm', I doubt that a person who smokes for five years before the age of 30, and then quits, would be medically distinguishable from a life-long non-smoker by the time they were both 40. There would be a small increased susceptibility to cancers, but nothing that could be detected without a very large sample size study. A coroner who was asked to pick between those two cadavers after they were hit by the proverbial bus might be able to find some traces that would help him guess which one was a smoker, but without cutting out lung tissue for close examination, I doubt it would be possible to guess better than chance.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

One of those anti smoking ads asserted that after 20 years of not smoking your lungs would have reversed any damage done. I'm assuming that was research based.

I believe them, based on what I know of biology, but suspect it varies with age of first exposure. I have never smoked but was a very heavy passive smoker for the first 20-odd years. (2 chain smoking parents in an era when nobody had heard of smoking outside to protect the children.) I haven't lived with cigarette smoke for 35 years but have a chronic cough that would kill a black dog. It won't kill me but I'm betting it will make my last years a lot less pleasant.

My advice; do what you can to clean up your lungs now.

 

[gmbteach]

I have heard, and am not sure what research has been done to prove it, tjhat a glass or two of soda or mineral or tonic water per day will assist in reversing the damage caused by smoking.

 

[Under the Rose]

We'll go ahead and assume that if you've been smoking for 20+ years your lungs are going to be in a sorry state, but what about those who quit after a shorter period of time?

I smoked for about 5 years, in the first year mildly, second and third moderately, and fourth and fifth heavily. I've been searching around to try and understand what my lungs look like now but most articles I've found focus on the improvements your lungs make, and not what permanent damage has been done.

Anyone have any idea? Any resources you can point me toward?

I've taken up running again for the first time since quitting the habit, and as far as I can tell my lung capacity has definitely gone down. Not sure if that's due to lack of exercise or permanent damage.

The body has an amazing capacity to heal itself when given the opportunity.

Has your body weight gone up in the intervening time?

Has your daily activity changed?

You have been a busy student since I have known you on this forum. I would suggest that a more intellectual yet more sedentary lifestyle might be the culprit.

 

[Perspicuo]

Some damage created by smoking is permanent. Even if journalistic articles state, "If you leave smoking you will gain x amount of years to your life" may be true, but do not embrace any interpretation that it means the longer you stay an ex-smoker the more you will have purified your system--say for instance, your vascular system, in some unlimited way.

Once your blood vessels get clogged up or fragile (arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis), there is little your body can repair. Worse even if you've developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (e.g. emphysema, chronic bronchitis). But even if those serious conditions have not developed, some permanent damage is already done. Take for example:

There is a famous study that shows that if you quit smoking by age 30, scientists can't show a statistically significant difference in mortality — [that is, when you'll die]. But those data are just mortality statistics. It doesn't mean the lungs are completely normal. Somebody who smoked a lot, even if they quit by 30, probably will have some impairment in lung function, and their exercise capacity might be reduced. Their lungs will always be a little bit more susceptible to other insults, to pneumonia infection for example.

(source: http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1819144,00.html)

Also, just quitting is not the only thing you can do. Exercise, stress management and diet are very important.

 

[rousseau]

We'll go ahead and assume that if you've been smoking for 20+ years your lungs are going to be in a sorry state, but what about those who quit after a shorter period of time?

I smoked for about 5 years, in the first year mildly, second and third moderately, and fourth and fifth heavily. I've been searching around to try and understand what my lungs look like now but most articles I've found focus on the improvements your lungs make, and not what permanent damage has been done.

Anyone have any idea? Any resources you can point me toward?

I've taken up running again for the first time since quitting the habit, and as far as I can tell my lung capacity has definitely gone down. Not sure if that's due to lack of exercise or permanent damage.

The body has an amazing capacity to heal itself when given the opportunity.

Has your body weight gone up in the intervening time?

Has your daily activity changed?

You have been a busy student since I have known you on this forum. I would suggest that a more intellectual yet more sedentary lifestyle might be the culprit.

I expect it's likely a combination of factors, but a sedentary lifestyle definitely plays a big role.

Back in the summer of 2012 I was working as a groundskeeper, which was the last time I was regularly active. After that point I got a little bit of exercise, here and there, but never any systemic routines. Over this past winter I started to notice that I was getting a significant belly, and I decided that I really don't want to be over-weight, and if there's any time to make a reversal this would be it.

So I've started running more regularly, but progress is definitely slow. My longest run so far is 1.5 miles. Before I started smoking and hit university I could run up to 4-5 miles (mind you I was carrying about 50 lbs less weight at the time)

 

[Under the Rose]

I think you will notice an improvement in lung capacity as you shed even a few pounds and recondition your muscles.

It takes a lot of energy to move the additional weight, energy which requires oxygen as input.

As we mature and become more comfortable with our economic and personal relationships, we perhaps lose a bit of the incentive for 'chasing after' potential mates and job opportunities. One needs to provide changed incentives else it is too easy to fall victim to 'the easy life'.

It is much easier to turn this situation around early rather than late, so you get on with the task, rousseau, is my best advice. You are the one who stands to gain most from improved health for it makes everything in life much easier in my experience.

 

[Kharakov]

For me, if I don't smoke for a few hours before a run (sometimes nap right before one too), it seems to improve the run. Just did 11.8 miles the other day, only smoked a few cigs before the run that day. Did notice around the 6.5 mile mark my legs were a bit tired, before that I was feeling pretty awesome. Note that I am 38, so I'm not very old, I exercised very regularly, up until the end of January this year, when I had to move and have not had access to all the things I like to exercise with (besides running shoes and isometrics).

Show

Still, it's more about not being a bitch about it and just doing it. Some people think about exercising instead of exercising, and then you'll come up with bullshit excuses such as "I'm too tired, I worked all day." I got called on those excuses after a few marathon 3 day long party sessions back west. Seriously, if you can party for 3 days straight, you've got no fucking excuse not to exercise after work.

hehe.. on a side note, I used to have this friend who smoked cigarettes while he ran- way more hardcore than me.

I (well, we, I had a bit of motivational harassment) defeated that excuse the other day, after working outside all day long I ran 7 miles back to the place I was staying. I just didn't let the false excuses defeat the run before it started- and note that I had the ammo of the realization that I've partied for 3 days straight, so working then running is nothing.

In fact, after resting one day after a 3 day party, I had the best run of my history last August. I had never been able to run all the way up this one hill that was a few miles into the run, after a few other tough hills, from 900' to 1563'... and then it was done. Thoughts of quitting were pushed aside as falsehoods.

 

[barbos]

I read lung cancer rates drops to that of non-smokers if you quit before 30-40ish. But cardio-vascular damage stay more-less to the rest of your life.
5 years smoking is probably too short to accumulate much damage.