Lungs heal damage from smoking

I quit 8 years ago after 25 years of a pack a day, yes my lungs are better, so is my sense of smell and taste. Unfortunately my heart and teeth won&#x27;t magically repair themselves, neither will the scars on my legs from poor circulation due to my hardened arteries.<p>Worst of all might be the fact that my bank account will never be what it could gave been if only I didn&#x27;t start, get addicted then squander the thousands of dollars a year on something that was killing me for over two decades.<p>Aint life funny that way? Nope, nothing funny about it, just regret, remorse and sadness.<p>If you don&#x27;t smoke, please don&#x27;t start it truly is self imposed misery.

I started smoking on the day of my 16th birthday, which, at the time and place, was the legal smoking age. It was irresistible for a high school kid with a job. By the end of that first pack I was completely hooked and smoking would be a permanent part of daily life.<p>I only smoked for about a year before deciding to quit. Unfortunately, I took me 12 years to finish quitting.<p>During that period of my physical prime (ages 18 to 26), I couldn&#x27;t climb a flight of stairs or ride a bike without getting completely winded. Any sort of physical exertion would result in gasping, coughing up phlegm, and seeing stars. A pick-up game of basketball or street hockey was out of the question.<p>I finally kicked it at age 30, 14 years after I had started. Although it took a while, by age 35 I could physically do things my 20-year-old self could only dream of. Like riding a bike up a hill, or exerting oneself at the gym.<p>I&#x27;m now in my mid-40s, and while the rest of body is now deteriorating at an alarming rate, my lungs are quite literally the only part of my body I never think about. I&#x27;m physically stronger and healthier in my mid-40s than I was at age 20.<p>So if you smoke, quit. Your lungs will recover.

This reflects what my doctor told me several years ago (four and a half?) when I quit.<p>He didn’t use the word magic. He did say that after four or five years or so my lungs would be in the same condition they would have been if I had never smoked—but only if I quit then. I’d smoked in the vicinity of a pack a day for close to ten years if I were to give it a rough average.<p>That said, I was very active in my youth, and worked physical jobs and played live music beside any sedentary work I’ve done. I continue to do so as well.<p>YMMV.<p>Edit: I thought I should add that I don’t want this to sound like an endorsement of the body’s ability to endure punishment.<p>If I could go back I wouldn’t pick up regular smoking as I did. And I wouldn’t start again. I return regularly to the feeling of relief that I’m not so bound to it anymore.<p>I don’t hate it, and I’d have a cigar, and maybe when I’m an old withered man I’ll pick up pipe tobacco. Who knows. For those who can manage it without getting too regular, good for you—life is short. I wouldn’t tempt myself that way again. Anyway, whisky’s a finer poison in my books—and similar cautions apply. ;)

I want to add some additional commentary on this post, because it relates to an experiment I did during one of my college science courses.<p>I will summarize for convenience. Essentially, what we did for the experiment was to observe the effect of tobacco &quot;juice&quot; (i.e. the loose trimmings from a Marlboro Red cigarette which were soaked in water) on a cell culture where the cells were taken from the inside of our mouths(cheeks) via cotton swabs.<p>The experiment was to observe the effects of this tobacco juice on the cells over time.<p>Within 2 weeks of exposure, the cells mutated and were &quot;cancerous&quot; and appeared disfigured and damaged.<p>This was terrifying to see up close.

&gt; In people who quit, up to 40% of their cells looked just like those from people who had never smoked.<p>That&#x27;s a nice way to say &quot;smoking destroys 60% of your lungs.&quot;

This title is pure clickbait. Any reason to not replace this BBC article with the &quot;Nature News and Views&quot; article? More informative, less dumbed down, but still accessible.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;d41586-020-00165-7" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;d41586-020-00165-7</a><p>The original journal article:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41586-020-1961-1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41586-020-1961-1</a>

I stopped smoking almost a year ago, having smoked heavily (~25&#x2F;D) from 16-25. Quitting was the best decision of my life so far: I run up stairs without thinking, my senses are sharpened and I generally feel way better than before. But most importantly, I don&#x27;t have the ffing urge to smoke a cigarette whenever I have five minutes of time, and especially when I don&#x27;t have those five minutes. I get up in the morning and just drink an espresso, I barely use my balcony anymore. I work in concentrated periods of 2-4 hours, because you know what? That smoking break you need to stay creative, it&#x27;s of course just a convenient lie to yourself. I go to parties and can stay inside for as long as I want to, and I still get to talk to people.<p>I like to say i woke up and the urge was gone, but that isn&#x27;t the full truth. The days before I quit I had extreme anxiousness and couldn&#x27;t sleep, thinking about how much I love life and what plans I have and how I want to have children - and how stupid it is to inhale smoke that kills you and doesn&#x27;t even taste that good in exchange. I didn&#x27;t want to die. Next day, halfway through the second one, I noticed they really don&#x27;t taste good and decided to quit.

Note that this study only focuses on lung cancer. It studies genetic damage to the bronchial epithelial cells. It does not study other diseases caused by smoking, like COPD which involves lung performance getting gradually worse until you die from suffocation.<p>COPD is actually cause of more deaths [1] than lung cancer and it does NOT get better if you stop smoking. It can only be slowed down, e.g. if you stop smoking.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat...</a>

My in-law is an uncologist, and told me this 10 years ago:<p>If you smoke 1 pack a day for 15 years (what they call &quot;15 pack.years&quot;), your lungs will completely heal, and you have no more risk than the next guy to get lung cancer.<p>After 15 pack.years, then the risk starts to increase significantly.

My dad had heart surgery ~16 years ago, due to the effects of smoking. He quit from one day to the next, and didn&#x27;t touch tobacco at all after that, started working out, cooking and eating healthier food, started playing the drums again, he got a new lease on life.<p>He passed away a couple of weeks ago at the age of 62, due to heart issues, a delayed consequence of smoking and a traditional diet heavy in saturated fat. Living clean(-ish) for 16 years doesn&#x27;t completely absolve you of your unhealthy habits earlier in life.<p>Don&#x27;t start smoking, don&#x27;t let your diet get shitty and full of saturated fat and sugar. Otherwise it <i>will</i> suck later in life, and sometimes sooner than you think.

I smoked for 8 years before quitting three years ago.<p>I breathe easier, got my appetite back and my social life improved. I can smell things. I can taste food again. I can talk to people without worrying about offensive breath.<p>Smoking takes away more than you may know. I&#x27;m 29 and wish I had quit much, much earlier. Lots of damaged relationships in my past. Those, unlike my lungs, have sadly not started to heal.

Well this is interesting, but of course lots of smokers never quit and you only need one cell to turn into a cancer and kill you.<p>On a related note, I think the demonstration that lung cells and lung cancers bear the stigmata of tobacco related mutagenesis has some significance to the legal liability of Big Tobacco. With this data one can show that a particular cancer in a particular person began from a single cell which was mutated by tobacco exposure. This is one level up from saying tobacco merely increases the risk of cancer on average, which is always open to the counter-argument that some other factor could have caused the particular cancer in the particular person. Whole genome sequencing of tumour and germline DNA can be had for about $5k these days plus analysis costs, so a class action suit or even individual suits are very feasible. There will be no shortage of oncologists and genomics people happy to help out with this.

Wow that&#x27;s fantastic! Especially the part about it helping motivate people to quit. The &#x27;not all hope is lost&#x27; if you simply stop now (simply =&#x2F;= easy).<p>As someone who lost their grandfather to smoking&#x2F;cancer, I&#x27;ll take any reason for someone to quit.

A lot of people smoke in Portland, Oregon and Oslo, Norway. At least that is my impression as I don’t have any facts or figures. But of the people I do see smoking, a significant portion of them are young. Another interesting to me observation is the way cigarettes smoke smells in Portland vs. Oslo. I don’t smoke, and don’t enjoy the smell and damage it does to the environment. If only people could properly dispose of their cigarette butts and snooze packets.

&gt; In people who quit, up to 40% of their cells looked just like those from people who had never smoked.<p>It looks like magic relative to the current theory, but it’s still not exactly good

Still curious about the research about THC induced apoptosis in lung alveolas.<p>I&#x27;ve been thinking of making a tiny bowl-vaporizer to inhale THC in small doses just to cleanse my lungs.

I quit 9 years ago. I am a new person. If you can read spanish (Google Translate will work well), I&#x27;ve described how i&#x27;ve quit smoking. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;minid.net&#x2F;2012&#x2F;12&#x2F;10&#x2F;como-realmente-pude-dejar-de-fumar&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;minid.net&#x2F;2012&#x2F;12&#x2F;10&#x2F;como-realmente-pude-dejar-de-fum...</a>

Just saw these graphs quoted.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Clive_Bates&#x2F;status&#x2F;1222799694453264385" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Clive_Bates&#x2F;status&#x2F;1222799694453264385</a><p>&gt; The Doll et al 50 year study of doctors nailed this in 2004 (see charts). Smokers avoid almost all premature mortality risk if they quit by age 40 and benefit at any age.

I have attempted numerous times quitting smoking with no success. During the withdrawls I wasn&#x27;t able to function properly: blurred vision, couldnt concentrate, mood swings and sleepless nights.<p>Smoking has a negative impact on my both physical and mental health. I have been smoking for almost 10 years, a pack a day<p>Could anyone who have successfully quit smoking share your stories and tips?

It&#x27;s strange how lungs can recover most of the time from smoking but not from particles. COPD is a terrible disease my father has it along with IPF (scars on lungs). He smoked early in his life but quit around age 30. Smoking is one of the causes of COPD but so is inhaling small particles like dust and fumes.

I pick up smoking a few in a gap of a few months. Then I feel guilty and stop for a few months. I have been smoking about 50 cigs year. Truth is I don&#x27;t think I can really quit. Forget addiction, I just like it that much. It is so much fun. I remember my first cig. It was so much fun. That&#x27;s all it took

Possible that the mutations have some sort of selective advantage while smoking which ceases to matter once quit. The non-mutated ones become again the one that express the more favorable genome for the current environment and take over from there.

Lungs heal damage from smoking...or better late than never. Even according to article they never heal 100% (just 40%) and smoking also screws up about everything else in the body. But, as soon as you stop smoking things &quot;better&quot;...

Two of my friends had a close call last month. One had an emergency quadruple bypass. The other one has COPD and fell down to 15% of normal lung capacity, and is now under 24&#x2F;24h oxygen, hoping for a pair of new lungs...

One thing the article doesn’t mention is what stopping means. I can guess the more time passes the better the healing but if they said after x years after stopping the effect is profound.

I guess this is good news for me, since I grew up with parents who chainsmoked indoors.<p>I wish there was some way to make such a thing illegal, other children shouldn&#x27;t have to grow up how I did.

To quit smoking, there is something like a &#x27;miracle&#x27; book, judging by reviews - &#x27;Allen Carr&#x27;s Easy Way to Stop Smoking&#x27;.<p>Has anyone here read it? I don&#x27;t smoke btw.

My grandmother smoked for 40 years, stopped in her early 60s. Sill died from COPD and lung cancer in her early 80s and was miserable for the last 5 years of her life.<p>Don&#x27;t smoke kids.

But what about the neurotoxins present in tobacco? Does damage caused by that &#x27;magically&#x27; heal?

It&#x27;s absurd and unbelievable that smoking is not categorically banned. Cigarette companies should be shut down point blank. Absolutely nothing good comes out of smoking, other than making some people rich at the expense of the health of the population, the tax payers&#x27; money, and the environment.

I didn&#x27;t think BBC did sponsored articles?

Wow, this is a <i>magically</i> irresponsible headline by BBC, especially considering the rest of the article. Without a quantifier, the implication is that <i>all</i> damage is healed, which further down is refuted by the buried lede:<p>&gt; In people who quit, up to 40% of their cells looked just like those from people who had never smoked.<p>Or, at least 60% of the lungs still resembled the lungs of a current smoker.

Most of the people, especially early smokers, who wouldn&#x27;t be bothered to read the article and just go by the title and think - &quot;I knew that, smoking is actually fine!&quot; - and would puff away to glory like never before.<p>While this is the first sentence in the article:<p>&gt; Your lungs have an almost &quot;magical&quot; ability to repair the cancerous mutations caused by smoking - but only if you stop, say scientists.<p>I really think BBC should have changed the title.