Cigarettes contain many chemicals that are known to cause cancer. Chemicals that can lead to cancer are called carcinogens. Most people know that smoking can lead to lung cancer, but it also linked to a higher risk for several other types of cancer, including bladder, stomach, and breast cancer. The decision to quit smoking can greatly reduce your risks.
Lung cancer is the most common cancer linked to smoking. It kills more men than any other type of cancer, and is second largest killer of women, after breast cancer. Smoking is the main risk factor to blame for more than 80% of lung cancers.
If you need more motivation to quit, read about some of the possible serious complications of lung cancer, such as coughing up blood, pneumonia, and loss of nerve function. The same carcinogens that can invade the lungs also get drawn into the mouth (oral cancers), the larynx, and the esophagus.
If you stop smoking before a cancer develops, your body may start to repair some of the damage caused by smoking. Quitting may be hard, but smoking is a lifestyle risk factor for cancer that we can actually control.