Light smokers on average smoke less than 10 cigarettes a day, moderate smokers 10 to 19 cigarettes a day and 20 or more cigarettes a day is classified as heavy smoking.
And when you overdo it, you actually invite severe and fatal conditions to attack you. According to a study, published by National Cancer Institute (NCI), a person who smokes more than 10 cigarettes a day, is at higher risk of death than non-smokers.
In general, a light smoker is someone who smokes less than 10 cigarettes per day. Someone who smokes a pack a day or more is a heavy smoker. An average smoker falls in between. Sometimes a doctor will use the term pack year to describe how long and how much a person has smoked.
And studies looking at people who smoke fewer than 10 cigarettes per day show an increased risk of smoking-related cancers and other diseases. Reducing the number of cigarettes you smoke a day is a good first step. But, there is no safe level of smoking.
Background: Heavy smokers (those who smoke greater than or equal to 25 or more cigarettes a day) are a subgroup who place themselves and others at risk for harmful health consequences and also are those least likely to achieve cessation.
Study finds some individuals have genetic variants that allow them to have long-term exposure to a carcinogen without developing lung cancer.
Each cigarette shortens life by 11 minutes. Each pack of cigarettes shortens life by 31/2 hours. Smokers who die of tobacco-related disease lose, on average, 14 years of life.
One pack year is equivalent to smoking 20 cigarettes a day for one year (1 pack × 1 year). If you are smoking ten cigarettes daily for two years (0.5 pack × 2 years), or two cigarettes per day in your ten years smoking history (0.1 pack × 10 years), it still gives us one smoking pack year.
Light smoking is defined as smoking five or fewer cigarettes per day. It can also mean skipping cigarettes some days and picking one up occasionally. “Light smokers may not consider their occasional habit as harmful. They may not even consider themselves smokers. But no cigarette comes without risk,” notes Dr. Lee.
The study showed that male smokers who make it to 70 years old still lose about four years off their life, with projections of 88, 86 and 84 for nonsmokers, former smokers, and current smokers, respectively.
1: Vaping is less harmful than smoking, but it's still not safe. E-cigarettes heat nicotine (extracted from tobacco), flavorings and other chemicals to create an aerosol that you inhale. Regular tobacco cigarettes contain 7,000 chemicals, many of which are toxic.
Am I addicted to nicotine? Usually if you smoke more than 10 cigarettes a day, or have a cigarette in the first half hour after waking up, you have a nicotine addiction that is significant enough to give you some real trouble when quitting.
Each cigarette you smoke exposes you to nicotine and other harmful chemicals and increases your risk for heart disease and cancer. The negative effects of smoking add up over the course of your life. There is no safe number of cigarettes, so the best choice is not to smoke at all.
Cigarette smoking causes premature death: Life expectancy for smokers is at least 10 years shorter than for nonsmokers. Quitting smoking before the age of 40 reduces the risk of dying from smoking-related disease by about 90%.
“Lifelong nondaily smokers have higher mortality risks than never smokers, even among those smoking six to 10 cigarettes per month. Thus, all smokers should quit, regardless of how infrequently they smoke.”
The intensity of nicotine addiction increased the more often a person smoked. The study found 35% of people who smoked one to four cigarettes per day were considered to be moderately or severely addicted to nicotine, compared to 74% of those who smoked 21 cigarettes or more each day.
Among daily smokers, the average number of cigarettes smoked per day declined from about 17 cigarettes in 2005 to 14 cigarettes in 2016.
Non-smokers: former smokers and never-smokers combined. Light smoker: a smoker who reports consuming between 1-10 cigarettes per day. Moderate smoker: a smoker who reports consuming between 11-19 cigarettes per day. Heavy smoker: a smoker who reports consuming 20 cigarettes or more per day.
Overall, the result is that middle-aged smokers often have as many wrinkles as non-smokers who are 60 or older. It's estimated that smoking 30 cigarettes a day could make your skin age an extra 14 years by the time you hit 70.
Jeanne Calment, the French doyenne believed to be oldest person in the world when she died at the extreme age of 122, was known for three things: her quick wit, her fondness for bicycling around the small city where she grew up -- and the fact that she was a daily smoker.
Your lungs are self-cleaning, which means they will gradually heal and regenerate on their own after you quit smoking. However, there are certain lifestyle behaviors you can practice to try and accelerate the rate at which your lungs heal.
But with others making it to 100 despite their smoking and drinking, scientists have long suspected it could be something in the genes that decides who lives long and who dies young. New research in Japan has found such a genetic link.
Nicotine stimulates the release of the chemical dopamine in the brain. Dopamine is involved in triggering positive feelings. It is often found to be low in people with depression, who may then use cigarettes to temporarily increase their dopamine supply.
Your lung function improves within two weeks to three months after the last cigarette. During the first year after quitting, coughing and shortness of breath decrease, and your lungs become better at cleaning themselves to reduce the risk of infection.