How Smoking Affects Your Appearance

'BEAUTY' and 'THE BEAST'

Many years of research by reputable medical bodies has shown that:

* nicotine is more addictive for women
* women who smoke have twice the additional risk of heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer
* lung cancer kills three times the number of American women than breast cancer
* smoking is linked to early menopause
* the aging effect of smoking on the skin is worse for women

Smoking cigarettes accelerates the aging process. And this is proven!

Here's What Smoking Does to Women

Smoking Harms Your Hair

Smokers are 4 times more likely to have these problems with their hair.

* The chemicals in cigarettes starve your hair of oxygen and make it dull, lifeless and brittle.
* Smoking can cause your hair to break off.
* It can cause dull, lank and smelly hair.
* It contributes to hair loss, greying and balding.

Smoking Ruins Your Skin

* It causes premature aging of the skin and ruins your complexion.
* Loss of skin glow and vitality.
* It causes premature facial wrinkling and leathery skin.
* Smoking can also lead to crow's feet.
* Smoking causes varicose veins.
* Your skin develops poor healing abilities.
* It can cause skin cancer.
* Improves chances of developing psoriasis.
* It slows your skin’s healing rate.

Smoking reduces the amount of blood flowing to the skin and dries it out. It constructs the tiny capillaries that nourish the skin. Smoking prevents oxygen and nutrients from getting to the skin . Over time, this means the skin loses elasticity and gets more wrinkled. The appearance of wrinkled, pale and grayish skin is four to five times more frequent in smokers than non-smokers. In 1971 an extensive study showed that the facial skin of long-term smokers was so terribly wrinkled that they looked as if they were 20 years older! Talk about not aging well.

Quitting smoking improves the blood supply to the skin and gives previously pale skin a more 'natural' appearance. A smoker's skin is more apt to wrinkle because the skin's vitamin A content is low compared with that for a non-smoker. Vitamin A protects the skin against strong chemical substances that may damage or destroy it. Smoking also gets in the way of absorption of vitamin C - a vital antioxidant for skin protection and health By quitting, you will improve your skin tone and colour. You are less likely to get wrinkles around your eyes and mouth from squinting when smoke gets in your eyes and puckering up when you draw on a cigarette.

Tips to Improve Your Skin
The grayish color of the skin is one of the many problems caused by smoking. If you want to look fresh, “attack“ the problem internally. Eat fruits rich in vitamin C and foods containing zinc. They stimulate the formation of collagen which is important for the skin. Eat wheat, oat flakes and fish - they are the main source of zinc. To replenish the lack of vitamin A, eat lettuce and carrots. Vitamin E is “responsible“ for the youth of your skin. Exfoliate, get facials, use night creams, and take supplements and multivitamins. One of the best multivitamins on the market for smokers and those people who are trying to quit, is Smokers Choice™ MultiVitamins.

Nutritional support is a must if you are in this category. As most people know, smoking depletes levels of essential vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants from the body system.

Smokers Choice™ is a vitamin and antioxidant supplement to address the nutritional needs of today’s smokers, those who have recently quit & people exposed to secondhand smoke. Smokers Choice™ is specially formulated with powerful antioxidants. It has more of the ingredients shown to help your body fight the harmful effects of smoking.

And, it is designed to be safer for smokers than other products on the market. Smokers Choice™ is specifically designed to counteract the potential effect that smoking may have. This formula encompasses those nutrients known to be depleted by smoking and have been shown to be at very low levels in most smokers. By replacing these nutrients and adding other nutrients known to strengthen the natural immune system, you may be able to greatly reduce the risks associated with smoking.

Smokers Choice™ contains no Beta-Carotene. Beta-Carotene has been found in multiple clinical studies to be potentially harmful to cigarette smokers. Yet, just about every multi-vitamin on the market contains Beta-Carotene. That's simply because those products are designed for non-smokers.

More Tips to Improve Your Skin

* consume a daily diet of healthy food
* eat many fresh vegetables and fruits
* eat fish and chicken
* take vitamin C daily
* drink at least 1.5 liter mineral water daily
* limit the alcohol and caffeine intake
* exercise regularly
* apply nourishing creams every day and use a night cream
* your skin care products should contain retinol, vitamins and antioxidant.

Smoking Wrecks Your Teeth & Gums

* Teeth Discoloration and Stains.
* Causes tooth decay and hot/cold sensitivity.
* It can cause oral or mouth cancer.
* It can lead to premature tooth loss and bad breath
* Gum disease. Smoking makes it harder for saliva to remove germs in your mouth so you have more chance of getting gum disease.
* Causes changes in the way you bite.
* Frequent bad breath.
* It can cause loose teeth or the gums separating from the teeth.
* It affects how partials and dentures fit.

Smoking and Your Lips

Smoking makes your lips dark and unattractive. The cells situated in the bottom of the epidermis are affected by smoking causing your lips to darken.

Smoking and Your Eyes

If you smoke, you risk developing cataracts and macular degeneration (deterioration of the retina of the eye resulting in the gradual loss of eyesight). This condition affects smokers nearly twice as much as non-smokers. Unfortunately, the risk of macular degeneration is only slightly reduced after giving up smoking.

If you smoke, you run an increased risk of developing cataracts. Smoking is one of the leading causes of visual impairment and blindness. The blood vessels in the retina are sensitive, and can be easily damaged by smoke. Smoking gives rise to a bloodshot appearance in the mucous membrane of the eye.

How Smoking Affects Your Hands

* Poor circulation causing cold fingers. One cigarette can reduce the blood supply to the skin for more than an hour.
* Peripheral vascular disease - It causes either acute or chronic ischemia (lack of blood supply).
* Arteriosclerosis of the extremities is a disease of the blood vessels characterized by narrowing and hardening of the arteries that supply the legs and feet. This causes a decrease in blood flow that can injure nerves and other tissues.

* Tar stained fingers and fingernails.

Smoking Can Alter Your Body Shape
Smoking can create an imbalance in women's hormone levels, which can lead to changes in body shape. You may have heard the saying that smokers tend to be thinner than non-smokers. However, smoking actually affects the endocrinal system - the glands that secrete hormones - and changes body shape, increasing the waist-to-hip ratio. Therefore, despite possibly weighing less, smokers tend to be pot-bellied with spindly legs, probably due to smoking upsetting the hormone levels, thus causing smokers to store the normal amount of fat in an abnormal way, which gives rise to the 'apple' shape. Quitting means your body can get back to normal and recover from the effects of smoking. Stop accelerating the aging process. Undo the damage wrought by smoking.

Look and Feel Better * Quit Smoking Today