Health Effects

Smoking raises your blood pressure and puts stress on your heart. Over time, stress on the heart can weaken it, making it less able to pump blood to other parts of your body. Carbon monoxide from inhaled cigarette smoke also contributes to a lack of oxygen, making the heart work even harder. This increases the risk of heart disease, including heart attacks.

Chemicals known as volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, cause eye, nose and throat irritation, severe headaches, nausea and organ damage. Formaldehyde irritates the eyes, nose, throat and skin and may cause lung and throat cancer over time.

Smokers' lungs experience inflammation in the small airways and tissues of your lungs. This can make your chest feel tight or cause you to wheeze or feel short of breath. Continued inflammation builds up scar tissue, which leads to physical changes to your lungs and airways that can make breathing hard. Years of lung irritation can give you a chronic cough with mucus.

Defective vapes have caused fires and explosions, some of which have resulted in serious injuries. Most explosions happened when the e-cigarette batteries were being charged.

Nicotine from cigarettes is as addictive as heroin. Nicotine addiction is hard to beat because it changes your brain. The brain develops extra nicotine receptors to accommodate the large doses of nicotine from tobacco. When the brain stops getting the nicotine it’s used to, the result is nicotine withdrawal. You may feel anxious, irritable, and have strong cravings for nicotine.

Vaping while pregnant isn’t safe, according to the CDC. Nicotine damages a baby’s brain and lung development and may affect other organs. In addition to nicotine, flavorings and other chemicals in e-cigarettes may also negatively affect a baby’s development.