Which is more harmful, smoking a pack a day or a pack every three days? How many cigarettes can the human body withstand in a day?

It is difficult to quit smoking. Everyone knows that smoking is harmful to health, so which is more harmful, a pack of cigarettes a day or a pack of cigarettes every three days? How many cigarettes can the human body withstand in a day? Let's talk about it today.

Which is more harmful: smoking a pack a day or a pack every three days?

Everyone knows that smoking is harmful to health, so how harmful is smoking to the human body?

The first thing I want to tell you is that about 85%-90% of lung cancer is closely related to smoking. As a thoracic surgeon, every time I write an SCI paper or give a lecture, I always mention that China is the world's largest country for lung cancer and has the largest number of smokers. Obviously, this "first" is not so glorious.

The number of patients diagnosed with lung cancer in the outpatient clinic is increasing, and the age of diagnosis is getting younger and younger. Just last week, a white-collar worker in his 30s was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the lung. When I told him that squamous cell carcinoma of the lung is closely related to smoking, he cried and said, "I have to stay up late to finish the copywriting. I smoke while writing. One pack of cigarettes a night is normal."

Smoking has many harmful effects, which are most evident in the lungs. The British Journal of Cancer once had a classic paper that counted the lung cancer mortality rate among men in different groups in European countries.

As can be seen from the above figure, the risk of death from lung cancer among 75-year-old smokers is about 16%, while the risk among non-smokers is less than 0.5%, which is 50 times higher.

The longer you smoke and the more you smoke, the more harmful it will be to your body. Smoking a pack a day is harmful to your body, as is smoking a pack every three days, but the former is more harmful. This can also be seen from the high-risk population for lung cancer as defined by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines. As the currently internationally recognized tumor standard, it defines the high-risk population for lung cancer as follows:

● High-risk group 1: Aged 55-77, smoking ≥ 30 pack-years, and quitting smoking

●High-risk group 2: Aged ≥50 years, smoking ≥20 pack-years, and having another risk factor.

From this grouping, we can see that the longer the exposure to smoke and the more cigarettes smoked, the higher the risk.

In addition to being harmful to the lungs, smoke also emits radiation to humans. Many people know that smoke harms the lungs, but few people know that smoke emits radiation to the human body, and the radiation dose is not low.

Generally speaking, radiation is measured in sieverts (Sv). The radiation exposure of a normal person is about 2 millisieverts per year, and the safe radiation dose range should not exceed 100 millisieverts per year. For special types of workers, such as imaging workers, it is recommended that the radiation exposure should not exceed 20 millisieverts per year, and not exceed 50 millisieverts per year.

Cigarettes contain Po-210, which can release alpha rays. When a cigarette is lit, Po-210 enters the respiratory tract with the smoke and causes damage to the respiratory mucosa, especially when it adheres to the alveoli, causing damage to the human body for a relatively long time.

At present, due to the different manufacturing processes of cigarettes at home and abroad, there is still controversy about the radiation caused by smoking for a year. Domestic literature believes that smoking a pack of cigarettes a day will result in about 2-3 millisieverts of radiation a year, while foreign literature believes that smoking a pack of cigarettes a day will result in a total effective radiation dose of about 10-50 millisieverts. Although the radiation doses shown at home and abroad are not the same, it is certain that smoking a pack of cigarettes a day will definitely result in more radiation than a low-dose spiral CT scan of the chest.

Many "smokers" advocate that smoking one cigarette a day will not cause any harm to the body. Indeed, smoking one cigarette seems to have little harm to the human body, but how many people only smoke one cigarette? A three-foot-thick ice is not formed in a day. The amount of harmful substances contained in a cigarette is very small, but as time goes by, the harmful substances increase, and the harm to the human body becomes greater and greater. What's worse is that the addiction to smoking will become stronger and stronger, from one to two, then to ten, and finally to a pack... On the contrary, it is difficult to quit smoking.

In addition to causing harm to oneself, smoking also endangers loved ones around you. The harm caused by second-hand smoke produced by smoking is even stronger than that caused by first-hand smoke. This is also one of the reasons why many non-smoking women eventually develop lung cancer.

For yourself and your family, quit smoking now