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Get on the Path to A Healthier You

by | May 15, 2016 | Being Well

If you quit smoking right now…

Within 20 minutes: Your heart rate and blood pressure drop.1

Within 12 hours: The carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal.2

Within 3 months: Your circulation and lung function improves.3

Within 9 months: You will cough less and breathe easier.4

After 1 year: Your risk of coronary heart disease is cut in half.5

After 5 years: Your risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, and bladder are cut in half. Your risk of cervical cancer and stroke return to normal after 5 years.6

After 10 years: You are half as likely to die from lung cancer. Your risk of larynx or pancreatic cancer decreases.7

After 15 years: Your risk of coronary heart disease is the same as a non-smoker’s.8

Sources

  1.  Effect of smoking on arterial stiffness and pulse pressure amplification, Mahmud A, Feely J. Hypertension. 2003:41:183
  2.  US Surgeon General’s Report, 1988, p. 202
  3.  US Surgeon General’s Report, 1990, pp.193, 194,196, 285, 323
  4.  US Surgeon General’s Report, 1990, pp. 285-287, 304
  5.  US Surgeon General’s Report, 2010, p. 359
  6.  A Report of the Surgeon General: How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease – The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease Fact Sheet, 2010; and Tobacco Control: Reversal of Risk After Quitting Smoking. IARC Handbooks of Cancer Prevention, Vol. 11. 2007, p 341
  7.  A Report of the Surgeon General: How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease – The Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease Fact Sheet, 2010; and US Surgeon General’s Report, 1990, pp. vi, 155, 165
  8.  Tobacco Control: Reversal of Risk After Quitting Smoking. IARC Handbooks of Cancer Prevention, Vol. 11. 2007. p 11