(Image: Tuija Strid/EyeEm/Getty)
Smoking is one of the worst things you can do for your health. Regular smokers shave half an hour off their life with every two cigarettes (see “Weighing up the risks“). But what about social smokers, those who fancy the odd cigarette normally accompanied by a drink or two?
According to the British Heart Foundation, there are 1.1 million occasional smokers in the UK. And a study of smoking in 31 US states found that the proportion of smokers who didn’t light up every day is on the rise – jumping from 16 to 21 per cent between 1996 and 2001.
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Occasional smokers tend to be categorised either as not smoking every day, or smoking an average of less than one cigarette a day. Can the health effects of such a habit really be that bad?
Some of the risks certainly pale in comparison to those of smoking 20 a day. Take cancer – the risks increase the more you smoke, says at the University of Nottingham, UK. “Every cigarette you smoke increases your chance of getting lung cancer, it’s as simple as that.” Each one causes irreversible structural damage, too. Fine particulate matter in the smoke causes damage to the lining of the lungs, the cumulative effects of which lead to serious breathing disorders.
And any social smoker who thinks the harms can be undone by more virtuous habits, such as exercise, is kidding themselves, Britton says. “Doing more exercise or even stopping smoking will not reverse this damage,” he says. “It’s a complete fallacy that your lungs can somehow regenerate.”
The news is even worse when it comes to cardiovascular disease and heart attacks – the biggest immediate risks for social smokers, says at University College London. “Unlike the risk of cancer or respiratory problems, which increase linearly with every cigarette smoked, the risk of heart disease is very non-linear, with the highest jump coming with the first cigarette and increasing gradually thereafter,” he says (see graph).
Intriguingly, smokers have been found to to hospital after a heart attack, or traumatic injury, compared with those who never smoked. This could be because some of the bad effects of smoking, such as over-activation of the body’s inflammatory response, or causing platelets in the blood to form clots, could be protective in a life-threatening situation. Clearly, though, this “smoker’s paradox” is no reason to keep up the habit, and the mechanisms at work are still under investigation.
There is more practical good news though. Quit social smoking now, and you might be able to get away with a lot. Within a year your excess risk (relative to someone who has never smoked) of smoking-related heart disease will be halved. And by giving up before the age of 30, people can by more than 97 per cent.
Recent research suggests quitting could also claw back some years lost to your lifespan. Among those who die of cardiovascular disease, smokers do so on average 5.5 years earlier than non-smokers. For ex-smokers, the gap goes down to 2.5 years – even if they quit as late as their 60s.
E’s are good
Of course, quitting is often easier said than done. Even occasional smoking is addictive. Social smokers might not struggle to get through the day without a cigarette, but they tend to have a strong psychological addiction, triggered by certain situations. Even those who smoke fewer than one cigarette a day struggle to give up when they want to, with 65 per cent relapsing within 6 months of their quit attempt. Electronic cigarettes might be a good trick to deal with their situational craving, West says. “E-cigarettes are certainly less toxic than tobacco ones. We don’t yet fully understand the long-term consequences, but in the short term, e-cigarettes are a good option – or at least a less bad option than cigarettes.”
“Occasional smoking is on the rise – can it really be that bad?”
Read more: “Guilty pleasures: Which bad habits can you get away with?“
This article appeared in print under the headline “Getting away with social smoking”
