Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2016 Nov 15:14:35.
doi: 10.1186/s12971-016-0101-z. eCollection 2016.

Are healthy smokers really healthy?

Zijing Zhou  1 , Ping Chen  1 , Hong Peng  1
Affiliations
Review

Are healthy smokers really healthy?

Zijing Zhou et al. Tob Induc Dis. .

Abstract

Cigarette smoke contains more than 4500 chemicals which have toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic effects. Strong evidences have shown that current smokers take a significantly higher risk of cardiovascular diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer than nonsmokers. However, less attention has been paid to the smoking induced abnormalities in the individuals defined as healthy smokers who are normal with spirometry, radiographic images, routine physical exam and categorized as healthy control group in many researches. Actually, 'healthy smokers' are not healthy. This narrative review focuses on the smoking related pathophysiologic changes mainly in the respiratory system of healthy smokers, including inflammation and immune changes, genetic alterations, structural changes and pulmonary dysfunction.

Keywords: Genetic alterations; Healthy smokers; Immune changes; Inflammation; Respiratory system.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Lee J, Taneja V, Vassallo R. Cigarette smoking and inflammation: cellular and molecular mechanisms. J Dent Res. 2012;91:142–9. doi: 10.1177/0022034511421200. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Teo KK, Ounpuu S, Hawken S, Pandey MR, Valentin V, Hunt D, Diaz R, Rashed W, Freeman R, Jiang L, Zhang X, Yusuf S. Tobacco use and risk of myocardial infarction in 52 countries in the INTERHEART study: a case–control study. Lancet. 2006;368:647–58. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69249-0. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Jindal SK, Aggarwal AN, Chaudhry K, Chhabra SK, D’Souza GA, Gupta D, Katiyar SK, Kumar R, Shah B, Vijayan VK. A multicentric study on epidemiology of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and its relationship with tobacco smoking and environmental tobacco smoke exposure. Indian J Chest Dis Allied Sci. 2006;48:23–9. - PubMed
    1. Lubin JH, Blot WJ, Berrino F, Flamant R, Gillis CR, Kunze M, Schmahl D, Visco G. Modifying risk of developing lung cancer by changing habits of cigarette smoking. Br Med J (Clin Res Ed) 1984;288:1953–6. doi: 10.1136/bmj.288.6435.1953. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wang R, Wang G, Ricard MJ, Ferris B, Strulovici-Barel Y, Salit J, Hackett NR, Gudas LJ, Crystal RG. Smoking-induced upregulation of AKR1B10 expression in the airway epithelium of healthy individuals. Chest. 2010;138:1402–10. doi: 10.1378/chest.09-2634. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources